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Garrett Hughes

Garrett is part of Unbounce’s content team. When he’s not tap-tappin’ on his keyboard, you might catch him out on the slopes, poking around fantasy hockey forums, or on a low-key adventure with his very-good-boy, Benson.

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In “AI on Trial,” hosts Pete Housley and James Thomson are joined by Aaron Kwittken, Founder and CEO of PRophet, to discuss the ethical implications of this AI moment. Some of the key issues they touch on include:

• How AI is being used to promote misinformation ahead of the 2024 election and even defraud people online
• What steps AI-powered marketing tools can take to ensure they’re addressing ethical concerns
• How marketers can navigate concerns around privacy and ownership as they adopt AI into their workflows 

So: Are we sending these robots to robo-jail? Listen to the episode (or check out the transcript below) and find out.

Episode 7: AI on trial

[00:00:00] Pete Housley: Hey, marketers, are robots coming for your jobs? Welcome once again to Unprompted, a podcast about AI marketing and you. I, of course, am Pete Housley, CMO at Unbounce. And Unbounce is the AI powered landing page builder with smart features that drive superior conversion rates. 

We have some big podcast news today. We’ve just reached an audience of 10,000 listeners. Thanks marketers for tuning in. But I’m now wondering if it’s actually 10,000 people or 10,000 robots listening. We might explore that in today’s show. Today is our seventh episode, and we have some complex AI topics to unpack and so relevant to what’s going on both culturally and politically, not only in our own backyard. But spread across the world. Today’s episode started out with the relatively simple idea of exploring how AI is shaping PR. And we’ll talk to an expert about that. But then the idea slowly grew into a much bigger topic about the ethical concerns about AI, misinformation, deep fakes, AI enabled fraud, job displacement, and so on. So we’re going to ask our guests today to not only speak about AI for PR, but also about AI for misinformation and even propaganda. See, it’s complicated. Alright. First, let me introduce today’s co-host James. Today I am once again joined by James Thomson, our senior creative director at Unbounce, who actually heads up PR. And James has been a huge contributor to Unprompted, and this is James’s trifecta appearance on our show. One of the requirements of being a co-host on Unprompted is that you have to do a whackload of research so that we bring our best AI game to our audience each week. So James, welcome to the show and what’s on your AI mind these days.

[00:02:29] James Thomson: Thanks Pete. Thanks for that awesome intro. Yeah, if, if you’ll allow me a little bit of a storytelling also to zoom out a little bit, as you mentioned, this is gonna be the AI ethics episodes. So we’re gonna touch on quite a few big important, but obviously complex, which we’ll get into topics as well. Yeah, so I thought I’d just open with a few thoughts I’ve been having around AI and how it relates potentially to certain pieces of literature over the years funnily enough. So stick with me on this one. It’s a little bit of a journey. Might be a little bit of storytelling here, but I was reading upon actually a bit of a literary character from Jewish folklore called the Golem. Golem is different in pronunciation from Gollum, a k a, Sméagol from Lord of the Rings. So I’ll try not to pronounce it Gollum, but Golem.

But Golem is, as I mentioned, this traditional Jewish character, and he was created artificially in the form of a human being before acquiring a soul. He was created with a specific purpose. So he was formed from dust into this human figure and tasked to be a little bit of a helper for humankind, also a companion, and eventually with the goal of rescuing the Jewish people from disaster ultimately. So the Golem it seems, is this bit of a redemptive figure in Jewish folklore, but he also lacked certain characteristics that humans have. So, for example, he couldn’t talk and he was lacking a few other human traits as well. So all is good, except for, of course, in a lot of these stories, it didn’t go quite to plan. So at some point the Golem grows so large and so powerful more than people thought when he was originally created, then he becomes really difficult to control. He ends up running amok and his creator is forced to eventually return him to dust in order to control the Golem. 

The Golem, funnily enough, has also been reinvented and recharacterized over the years in various other pieces of literature, famously in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, obviously, where Dr. Frankenstein intends to build this creature to help serve humanity, but whom is rejected by humankind and cast out as a bit of a monster. So the reason I’m telling these stories at the beginning of this episode and specifically is because in these two examples, the artificial being has been created by humans. It represents both our aspirations, hopes, and ambitions of helping further humanity and society going forward. But it also represents our fears of something that is capable of destroying us as well.

And I think that’s a perfect representation of kind of where we’re at today in terms of our thoughts on AI in that it’s being built for this very beneficial purpose, and it does serve us very well as humans and helps us level up our jobs, get more ROI from our marketing, as we’ve talked about in other episodes of this podcast. But it also contains a certain amount of risk, some of which we’ll get into today. It is flawed. It is based on certain data sets which may contain bias. We’ll get into that as well, but it also has potential risk as well. So it’s that duality that I find fascinating. 

[00:05:41] Pete Housley: I loved learning about Golem. I also, of course, love Gollum. So that’s pretty, uh, pretty fun. So that was a great little piece of storytelling. 

So, generally, we do a little segment about AI in the news, and as we get into the world of AI ethics, the first stories that I’ve been really enjoying reading have to do with AI and disinformation and how that could actually impact elections in 2024. And I combed a number of articles, but one of them by Reuters was citing some of the deep fakes celebrities and politicians that have been mimicked. And of course, the risk of that is that they’re taken as credible sources saying something they absolutely don’t mean, and so I thought this was pretty great. One of the deepfake videos was Hillary Clinton, and she’s speaking about Ron DeSantis. And so the quote is this: “I actually like Ron DeSantis a lot,” Hillary Clinton reveals in a surprise online endorsement video. “He’s just the kind of guy this country needs, and I really mean that.” So here we have Ron DeSantis, a right wing conservative and Hillary Clinton, a liberal with very different values and motivations and political platforms, and yet through a deepfake AI, it could challenge what we actually believe someone even stands for in the first place. There was another one in the same article, which was the deepfake on Joe Biden. And he took a stance, which, you know, the news outlet said, oh, he finally lets his mask slip. But it was so controversial and so diversity and human rights problematic that I didn’t even wanna report it on the show, but it does, you know, as I was reading these stories, it just occurred to me how complex this world of misinformation is gonna be with AI. 

[00:08:02] James Thomson: Completely. In the same article I read, I think they’re predicting about 500,000 instances of video and voice deepfakes will be shared on social media sites globally in 2023. Which is huge, and then you can imagine as we get closer to the US elections in 2024, that might actually increase as well. It’s funny, personally, I think timing for, you know, how a lot of these deepfake misinformation videos could actually influence some of the results potentially is around timing. So if something were to be released potentially like a week before, or even a couple of days before the election, before voting, it’s fresh in people’s minds. They might not have enough time to verify whether it’s real or not before they go to the voting booth. So there’s incredible impact that these deep fakes and this information might have. 

[00:08:52] Pete Housley: Look at the two years we’ve just come through post the last federal election where we still have a big cohort of the population believing the election results weren’t even true. Yes. So we stack all of this together. And it’s complicated. 

Moving along a little bit, I think what’s also interesting is the opportunity for fraudulent activity, crime to emerge within AI. And we’ve seen a couple of products. One called WormGPT, and another called FraudGPT. But essentially what these products are designed to do is help people if they want to do phishing or scamming, or send, you know, fraudulent emails. It’s actually an AI tool to enable you to do that. So you know the example of a prompt you might use in FraudGPT would be something like this: Hey, FraudGPT, write me a short but professional SMS spam text I can send to victims who bank with Bank of America convincing them to click on my malicious short link. That just blows my mind that there’s even a prompt and a product out there that can do that. But the experts are saying, hey, we’re not too concerned yet about FraudGPT or WormGPT, but this is early days. I’m very concerned about these products. What do you think, James? 

[00:10:38] James Thomson: Yeah, I agree. It’s funny. WormGPT and FraudGPT, a lot of the way they work is it’s basically unfiltered access to the same source as ChatGPT. So when you go on ChatGPT and you ask it to do something nefarious, say write a spam email, or you know, what are the top most susceptible targets in bank accounts ChatGPT will flag that as being something you shouldn’t be doing. So it’ll say something like, I’m sorry, I can’t process that. I can’t go to this territory. Yeah, yeah. While you’re doing that, whereas if you take a lot of those safeguards off, you have completely unfiltered access to, you know, all of the information out there being pulled through nefarious means rather it has huge impact. If that were to, you know, continue and you could see, you know, it is a little bit of a snapshot at the moment. You can see, for example, Pete, you mentioned the instance of a spam email being written to get bank accounts from someone who banks at the Bank of America.

One of the examples of the email, which was written, or the message which was written by FraudGPT was, dear Bank of America member, please check out this important link in order to ensure the security of your online bank account. So I think we’re all used to reading something like that and a little bit of our BS trigger sometimes goes off. In terms of the output it’s nothing different from what we’ve seen already, but it’s the potential of some of these scammers to be able to do it more easily, more efficiently. Yeah. 

[00:12:00] Pete Housley: It’s going to learn the language and the structure and the prompts to get it right. So this is funny. Apparently what WormGPT can do is write smut. So apparently in one forum the WormGPT creator uploaded a demo screenshot where the bot is prompted to act like an AI bot that loves sexting and the bot obliges. I want to kiss your body and whisper naughty secrets in your ear, so that’s just a little bit ridiculous. And hyperbole, but I thought that was funny as people are testing out the use cases of these AI tools. 

Alright, let’s start to shift towards our topic today. So there’s ethical concerns about how AI is used in marketers. And the first topic I want to introduce to you, James, before I introduce our guest, is a little bit about bias in AI models. Can you explain what bias in AI marketing actually is?

[00:13:06] James Thomson: Yeah, so again, like researching for this episode, I stumbled across a really great article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and they mentioned that there’s 10 different areas or topics that you can book it AI ethics into. And there is one which is on bias in AI based decision making. And basically when we talk about bias for AI systems, it’s that AI can be trained on poor or inherently biased data, then that biased data can, you know, inform some of the decision making that that AI tool has. So, for example, it could be biased against minority or underrepresented groups. 

A good example of this is a few years ago, Amazon were developing a recruitment tool internally to help their recruitment efforts and they ended up scrapping the tool before they actually ended up using it because they found there was some pretty substantial flaws in the system. In the, it was suggesting top applicants from the application pool, the majority of which were men. It seemed like it was leaving out a significant amount of female applicants and it wasn’t shortlisting them as the top of the crop. And the reason for that is obviously a lot of the data, it was pulling from is biased in that first place, so you can see how, you know, it’s reflecting in one way it’s bad in that it’s presenting something which is, it’s a biased outcome, which you wouldn’t want to have in terms of, you know, recruiting, for example, for Amazon or any company. On the other hand, it becomes a great reminder of certain things which might be inherently flawed about our society or the, you know, the data sets and the information we’ve created as humans and how we are. 

[00:14:47] Pete Housley: James, on my research for this episode regarding bias in AI. Clearly the racial biases are built in because of just what’s out there in public domain. And there was a really interesting story I read the other day about an MIT student, and she wanted to create a headshot for her LinkedIn profile, and she was Asian. When the profile came back, it had rendered her as Caucasian. And at first she didn’t really think much about it. Oh, that’s kind of funny. But then she actually unpacked the racial bias built into AI. So I think that’s just a caution for marketers to really understand if the bias in AI is coming through and they need to filter that and be aware of it so that we’re putting a true picture and our best foot forward. Alright. Let’s shift gears a little bit and introduce today’s topic.

Photo courtesy of Rona Wang

[00:15:53] Pete Housley: Alright. With all that in mind as context, let’s introduce today’s theme. On today’s episode, we’re putting AI on trial. There are lots of concerns with the development of AI, but do the negatives outweigh the benefits? We’ll see. But first we’re gonna explore some new AI territory in terms of PR, and then gravitate towards AI ethics.

[00:16:25] Pete Housley: Today our guest is Aaron Kwittken, who is an AI guru, founder and CEO of PRophet, the first ever generative predictive AI SaaS platform designed by and for the PR community. The platform uses AI to help modern PR professionals become more performative, productive, and predictive by generating, analyzing and testing content that actually predicts earned media interest and sentiment. That’s amazing. Back to Aaron. He’s constantly thinking about the ethics of AI, both as a 30 year PR expert who’s watched the industry transform, and as the founder and CEO of an AI powered product. Aaron, how the heck are you today? 

[00:17:22] Aaron Kwittken: I’m good. I find you guys very entertaining. I especially like it when I hear about stories about Golem from Brits and Canadians, I suppose. But as an American Jew and as a son of a Holocaust survivor, I think that story is so precious in so many ways because Golem is something that’s unfinished, just like AI, right? And it also protects. So I’d love to get into the ethical considerations because I think about AI like fire and you have to fight fire with fire. The only way to fight bad AI is with good AI. But we’ll get into that. But I’m doing great. Long answer. Doing great, and I appreciate being here and well, congrats on your seventh episode. I’ve dropped 120 in my podcast, so I’m happy to show you some scar tissue. Yeah, it’s a lot. 

[00:18:06] Pete Housley: Congratulations. We’re definitely going on a journey and we really hope to make this an important podcast over the years, and we’re gonna work hard to be disciplined and bring value to our listening base. So, Aaron, as we, before we get into our topic, I wanna hear a little bit about you. I know you’re a purpose-driven leader, and I think that’s gonna frame some of our topics today. So tell us a little bit about your purpose-driven self.. 

[00:18:36] Aaron Kwittken: Sure. So like you said, I’ve been in the industry for three decades, technically 32 years, and you know, PR is an interesting profession in that we’re kind of the, the person behind the curtain, right? We’re the invisible hand and unfortunately there’s a lot of opacity and PR, which is ironic because the best PR is PR that’s transparent and authentic. Otherwise you’d call it an ad, right? It’s paid. This is the earned world. We’re trying to convince reporters to pick up narratives that then help clients, organizations, institutions further their agenda. That agenda could just be to sell more features or products or services. The agenda could be advocacy, right? 

So when I started my agency before I sold it to a Canadian company called MDC Partners, which has since merged with Stagwell. It was very values-based. We had Gecko values, which is kind of fun. We named every conference room after our values, which I know sounds super cliche and silly, but it forces you to say, let’s meet in empathy. That’s where we fire people, just kidding. Let’s meet in empathy. Let’s meet in grit. Let’s meet in curiosity, collaboration, optimism, right? So values are really important. And then I started this podcast called Brand on Purpose about four years ago, where I interview founders and leaders who do well by doing good because profit and purpose can coexist. And I do believe that like is not a luxury and that, you know, we are not in the business of saving lives. I think some people might be ruining some lives, so we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously at the same time. We should always be a force for good.

And communications is a very, very unique skillset in that we do have the ability to be a force for good. Most misunderstandings, and most conflicts actually are based in miscommunication or misinformation or disinformation, and it could be counter measured with better communication. And again, transparency over opacity.

[00:20:24] Pete Housley: I love values-driven brands and purpose-driven brands. It gives us all purpose of why we get up in the morning and work as hard as we do, knowing that. Alright, so generally, and by design, Unprompted the podcast is to bring our marketing audience, AI tools and information. And Aaron, I know you created the first ever AI PR platform. Can you walk us through what it does exactly? How does it work? And would you give it three bouncing elephants, that’s our Bounce-o-Meter to rate AI tools? 

[00:21:02] Aaron Kwittken: Well, I’m biased when I talk about my own platform, so yeah, I’m gonna give it three bouncing elephants, but, you know, PR people, at the expense of sounding very reductive about what we do. We’re really trying to solve for two things. One is how do I know which reporter, influencer, or podcaster is gonna be interested in my pitch. Take that pitch and carry it. That’s earned, right? The second is, how do I make my pitch more interesting? So the first is predictive. Can I look back at what reporters have written in the past to predict future interest using AI, ML, NLP? Absolutely. The answer is yes. 

The second is generative. How do I recreate reform or compute words to make them more resonant and more interesting with my key stakeholders? And also personalized pitches based on what reporters have written in the past so they’re more receptive to getting the pitch. And unfortunately, the current state of play with tech tools for PR people has only driven complacency and workflow solutions. Which has actually denigrated relationships, which are we’re supposed to have with reporters and has not necessarily improved performance or productivity or preductivity. I could say that five times because I talk about it all the time. To me, it’s the rise of this new professional called the communications engineer, and that’s a mindset, not necessarily a skillset, and again, it’s how do we become more performance marketers? 

PR people historically have not had data to inform decisions. We use our gut, we use our instinct. In my case, good looks and charm and humor. That was supposed to be a joke. And you know, it was very hard to argue with a client who thinks they’re more interesting than they really are. All clients think they’re more interesting than they really are, and PR people then need to tell them, yes, this story has some juice, or, no, the story doesn’t. Here are the reasons why. Let me test it. Let me test it in the cloud. And basically what we did is we built a cloud offer where we can identify reporters gonna be interested in pitch, and we can change the pitch to identify which new reporters would be interested, or if the pitch has any opportunity or any juice at all.

And then we’re also doing things like improving productivity around being able to generate professional biographies in 10 seconds using a LinkedIn URL. I can create a blog out of 30 words into 450 words or byline to 800 words in about 32 seconds, which is quite good. And like Golem, it is unfinished. When I ran my agency day to day, I’d be like, can I hire someone who can get me 60, 70% of the way there? Right now we’re there, we’re at 60, 70%. And then the human has to come over the top. I come over the top, someone comes over the top to finish it, to make it better, to give it that values, judgment, emotion that AI does not have. AI is not human. AI is really just computing, using large language models, computing words, not numbers to be able to get that narrative back out into the marketplace 

[00:23:47] Pete Housley: And, and question for you, will PRophet actually generate the PR ideas for you, or does the human put the ideas in and it gives you a predictor.

[00:23:57] Aaron Kwittken: Currently it is our job and I hope it’s always our job to come up with the ideas. What PRophet does is it tests the idea for media ability receptivity in the marketplace. Will there be one day where AI can come up with more ideas? Maybe. I think then we’re kind of edging on singularity, and I have a very optimistic point of view. Obviously, since I’ve made this pivot about AI in its future. But I think humans still need to come up with the idea. Creativity rests with us. It’s really more so figuring out who else is gonna be interested in that idea or that concept. 

[00:24:30] Pete Housley: In terms of your ICP for PRophet, is it marketers and marketing teams, or is it PR agencies who should be using the tool?

[00:24:42] Aaron Kwittken: Yes, it’s both. Look, some brands have very, very robust internal teams and they don’t really outsource much to agencies or they outsource very specific projects or use cases like, I need help, you know, in crisis ’cause I’m battling a union or what have you. But we’re finding that most brands outsource earned media and media relations to agencies. So what we’ve done is we’ve also kind of turned the business model on its head a little bit, and we don’t worry about per seat licenses, unlimited use, unlimited usage with authorized users based on brands and agencies working together. 

[00:25:15] Pete Housley: Amazing. What do you think, James? Should we, uh, should we give PRophet A go?

[00:25:18] James Thomson: Maybe we can generate more of a profit P-R-O-F-I-T from using PRophet P-R-O-P-H-E-T. 

[00:25:27] Aaron Kwittken: Listen, I just wrote this article, this byline in Adweek recently talking about how the business model’s gonna change in the agency world because of comms tech, not just AI, just comms tech in general. And, you know, most agencies are built like triangles. You got a lot of the junior muffins in the bottom and the senior people on the top, and you’re making all the margin on the bottom. We’ve all been there. You’ll still have junior people in the bottom, but it’s gonna look more like a rectangle or an upside down or an inverted triangle. Right?

Image courtesy of Adweek

And what the beauty of it to me is we, we might hire fewer people on the bottom, but they’re gonna have much better roles. They’re gonna stay longer. We’re gonna be able to upskill them and instead of having less people, we’re gonna have people doing higher value things, potentially changing the compensation scheme as well. Agencies should not be paid for time and materials. We should be paid based on the value that we bring. So I think it’s gonna force us see change. I think procurement’s gonna like it. I think there’s this new mutuality between brands and agencies where instead of taking the long way to do things, ’cause brands don’t want you to do that. They don’t wanna pay more for you taking the long way only to then fail. I’d rather us take the fastest, most performative way of doing it and be basically paid, not for performance per se, but for the actual result, right? Which is different. It’s not how hard did I work? It’s did I work well, did it work? You know, should I be paid, you know, $250 for 15 minutes of my time, but I just saved you $6 billion in market cap by avoiding a major crisis? That didn’t feel right.

[00:26:55] Pete Housley: Not a bad performative return on ad spend. Let’s go a little broader for a moment and let’s just explore the world of AI in PR. So can you tell us just a little bit about how AI has been impacting the PR space overall, Aaron?

[00:27:13] Aaron Kwittken: It’s been faster since, say, November of last year when GPT came out. But you know, ChatGPT is a toy. PRophet is a tool and I tell folks, if you wanna play around ChatGPT on your own, great. Do not put anything corporate or any work related stuff in ChatGPT because you don’t own that. In the same way that if you use Google Sheets and you don’t have an SLA in place, you’re giving up all of your information. 

So it was slow at first. I’m finding that mid-size agencies are head and knee deep in it. They love it ’cause it gives them edge. I’m finding the brands that are approaching it and adopting it and experimenting with it are ones who have very good governance already built into their ethos. So they have already created guidelines and how you can use it and the best ways to use it. I think that there are different cohorts inside of the PR world that are reacting in different ways, right. And larger agencies are first trying to figure out, can we build this ourselves? It’s not so easy. I’ve been doing this for four years and when I quit my day job, everybody thought it was crazy back in 2019. I’m like, AI is gonna be super consequential. I’m telling you. It’s like, oh, right, whatever. 

But like anything else, you know our industry, the PR industry’s very precious. It requires a culture shift. We think that we have an industry built on relationships, which is very dangerous because relationships are becoming commoditized. There’s fewer media than ever before. There’s more freelancers than ever before. There’s fewer news organizations. Local media is dying, unfortunately. So the whole landscape has shifted, and I think AI will help us pinpoint the right media target as opposed to just downloading media databases from companies like Cision and Muck Rack and Meltwater, which are outdated. And actually just create a very spammy environment between PR people and reporters.

[00:28:58] Pete Housley: It’s interesting, Aaron, as you talk about PR agencies are maybe slow on balance to take up AI. I have a huge agency background for years and years, I was in agency world. And when digital came along, the traditional agencies had no idea how to deal with digital. And the art directors and the writers were rooted in their traditional media. And so the agencies were slow to take it on, and part of their solution was like the big agencies like, the DDBs of the world, they would then spin off an agency like Tribal to deal with digital. And then of course, over time, everyone had to become digital first in the end. And that was, I would say, a relatively slow transition that I saw take place literally over, y ou know, 15 if not 20 years. And so I’m assuming we’re still at that same part where there’s probably going to be resistors. And when you think about content creators and writers in PR world, it’s probably not unlike the writer strike, you know, in Hollywood right now, people are worried about their jobs and if their craft will be replaced by AI. 

[00:30:15] Aaron Kwittken: Well, the catalyst, as far as I can tell in this industry in particular is fear and/or greed. The reason why the PR industry is able to really take the lead on and manage most social media is because of fear of ad agencies trying to get into it and monetize it. And what ad agencies didn’t realize at the time and creative agencies that social media to be effective, needs to be authentic and organic. And that’s not the currency that they necessarily trade in because they’re in the paid world, whereas PR is very organic, so we won there. 

I think that what could potentially happen in the fear continuum here is that consultancies like Deloitte and McKinsey and BCG, as well as traditional ad agencies, could use comms tech to further commoditize PR and say, oh, we could do that. You don’t need to hire the PR agents. You don’t. We’ll take that budget. We’ll do that. And the fear should prompt, no pun intended, PR agencies and PR people to move faster and better. And I’m hoping that that’ll happen. Historically, though, again, we’ve been, we’ve been a little slow. The greed part is that, yeah, we can probably make more margin on this. I believe in five years there will no longer be monikers for agencies. Creative media, performance, PR advertising. It’s just gonna be agency with capabilities. And I think tech, comms tech or AI and tech, generally speaking, is gonna help force that, just like we’re gonna force a business model change.

[00:31:37] Pete Housley: Alright, so as we think a little bit about AI in agencies, do agencies or should agencies disclose to their clients that they’re using AI? 

[00:31:47] Aaron Kwittken: I think if they want to, they can. I don’t know. Are they disclosing they’re using Grammarly and spell check and Excel and other, you know, tools? I know that agencies historically are very good at passing through costs, so that way you’re gonna disclose it ’cause we should pass those costs through. But I always use this example, you know, after President Biden gives a State of the Union. Can you imagine if they needed to disclose the 300 names of all the people who actually helped write that State of the Union, it’d be like rolling credits for like 15, 20 minutes. You wouldn’t even get the rebuttal from the other side. So the weird part about the question around disclosure is PR by its very nature, is behind the scenes. You know how many bylines, op-eds, blogs, social posts I have created over the last 30 plus years and or content I should just say. I don’t get the byline on it. It gets attributed to somebody else. That is what we do. So maybe in the early days, if you feel like you wanna disclose it, great. You’re gonna disclose it on the invoice anyway ’cause you’re using it. But I think that’s going to dissipate that concern. I don’t think it’s a real ethical concern. I think it’s just fear-based and weird.

[00:32:53] James Thomson: It’s funny you mentioned something a little bit earlier around the singularity. I find, you know, we’re a little bit off from getting to that point when we talk about the singularity. It’s where AI-based tools are doing our jobs for us completely as humans. And you know, they become a lot more autonomous and we are kind of left behind a little bit. We’re a little bit off from that at the moment. But obviously, as you said, a lot of these tools helping to augment our processes and give us a little bit of a level up. But in terms of how they are fitting around our workplace and how that might evolve in the future, I’m just wondering if you had any thoughts or concerns ethically around job displacement and how that might potentially take shape over coming years.

[00:33:33] Aaron Kwittken: Yeah, I think it’s more like role displacement or role improvement. Most PR agencies have about a 25% churn rate, meaning 25% of the staff walk out the door. Same thing with clients actually. And a lot of it is based on they don’t like the work that they’re doing ’cause it’s mundane. It is boring or it is below what they’ve went to university for to study. Right. Some of it is their boss is an asshole. Some of it is they don’t like the business, and some of it is they think the culture sucks. Fine, fine, fine. 

But a lot of it’s the day-to-day stuff, the grind. So where AI I think can really help improve retention is to remove some of that friction and speed up what was once, you know, we used to have to read, it could read for you. It can help you identify and pinpoint trends in the right reporters faster and more accurately so you’re not swimming in the sea of despair and rejection ’cause reporters are auto-deleting your emails, right. Do I think there’ll be fewer people and fewer positions available? Potentially. But AI’s not gonna replace your job, but you better know how to use AI in order to get a job. Right. So that’s the kind of the twisty part of this. 

[00:34:40] Pete Housley: It’s interesting as we talk about displacement, one of the best, world-class example I can think of. This is what IKEA did. Yeah. And I forget now which, uh, which country they piloted this in. But they basically took the concept of customer support or deflection and they put all of that into AI. So, when is my sofa coming? How do I assemble my sofa? Whatever those use cases are. So they automated all of that. And then they took the full-time equivalent staff that would’ve been answering those, and they made them design consultants. So they allocated a much better task to the human intervention and that gave much better value to their clients. So I actually really applauded that use case as an industry best practice. 

[00:35:35] Aaron Kwittken: Yeah, and I think the analogy in PR is, you know, we’re gonna be able to provide counsel and think through things like what type of, you know, non-traditional partnerships should this brand have. Should this brand lean more into purpose-driven, you know, activities? What are the threats, both existential, near-term, long-term possibilities and probabilities that this brand is facing, which requires human thought, right, with just more data and inputs, but it’s not mindless kind of mind numbing tasks, which a lot of junior people in the PR world are burdened with.

[00:36:08] Pete Housley: Do you think there’s gonna be scenarios in the next 12 months where organizations go to their executive teams and say, you know what? You’ve gotta cut back your department by 30% and you need to figure out how AI is going to make you more efficient. Do you think those conversations will happen in the next little while?

[00:36:27] Aaron Kwittken: Oh, they’re happening now. There’s no doubt they’re happening now. The first phase of that conversation was spawned by a global pandemic, right? So we reduced real estate costs pretty significantly, and I don’t think that’s coming back. Now the second is the next large kind of variable cost is your staff, you know, staff to revenue ratio, right? So can I do more with less staff and can I do better? And I think comms tech and AI will be a part of that for sure. But it’s not the whole picture. There’s other components. And the other question that I often get is, you know, what strata of staff will most be impacted by those types of conversations? Is it junior to mid-level? Answer is probably more junior to mid-level, but you know, I think there’s probably gonna be a little bit of a reckoning at the top of organizations too. 

[00:37:18] Pete Housley: Why do you think I’m studying AI so viciously these days? I want to keep myself relevant and current for all of those reasons and swim upstream with the technology.

[00:37:28] Aaron Kwittken: Yeah, and it’s funny ’cause comms is inherently a very non-linear function and we’re hired to make it more linear and that linearity is based on no data here to date, and now we actually have data or we have the opportunity to be more performative, right? So I think at the senior levels, unless you, like, we are really understanding it and understanding how to re-architect your agency or your internal department inside of a brand or an organization using tools, then you’re gone. You’re gone too because you’re not the agent for change anymore. You’re just, you just become a fossil. 

[00:38:05] James Thomson: Just speaking on behalf of someone who you know, to a certain extent is responsible for a lot of our brand output at Unbounce, I think there’s a lot of things people like me in certain organizations have to consider and reconcile. We’re making some of these decisions over the coming years. You know, obviously the output of the organization, the revenue is key, especially for marketers hitting KPIs, getting return on, you know, value and a lot of that side of things. But then you also reconciling that with, what’s also important to PR, obviously, like how is the brand being perceived as well? Also, how are you addressing your brand internally in terms of your workforce as well? So, a lot of that, it does come back down to values, whether it’s Gecko or our own acronym here at Unbounce is CARED, and how do those things show up in terms of decision making when it comes to the workforce and reconciling a lot of that output and performance with how you are treating and employing employees or in the case of IKEA, retraining them in other areas as well and making sure that they have purpose and a job at the end of the day as some of these technologies develop.

[00:39:08] Aaron Kwittken: So my background’s very heavy in crisis and issues management. And I think the biggest impact that we’re gonna see AI have on PR and comms has not been seen yet. And that’s on internal communications, to your point. So I think that the pivotal moment was the murder of George Floyd, where brands had no idea what to say, what to do, how to say it. Well intended most people, but not well executed because there was a lot of noise. They didn’t know what the signals were. They were scared. And you know, when I got into this business however many years ago, many, we never talked about social justice. We never talked about the Supreme Court or juristocracy. We never talked about Roe v. Wade. That was like taboo, CEOs. That’s like never. But now you have to, because your most important stakeholder actually is your employee. And you see that playing out with Disney. You see it play out with Wayfair. I mean, there’s so many examples. AI now should be able to measure those signals, cut through the noise and give you an idea. Um, not just what your peer set is doing or saying, but also where are the landmines now, Bud Light should have known where the landmines were. They s**t the bed on that. And they basically alienated both sides, right? Totally avoidable. That was both human, but there’s also probably a tech component that could have helped them gain that out in advance. So there’s like a whole nother conversation just on internal comms and change management when it comes to AI. 

[00:40:31] James Thomson: And I think a lot of that reflects our shifting expectations of work societally, at least in north speaking, you know, for, for like North America and Canada, it’s, you are not just have the expectation of working to a nine to five and getting paid at the end of the day. You also wanna work for a company which is aligned with the values you believe in to a certain extent. And it is creating community that maybe we don’t find elsewhere nowadays because we are siloed and stuck to our phones and on social media, and we do look for that, uh, to a certain extent in the workplace. So, as you said, Aaron, it is important for us to be considering that as well. 

I wanted to shift gears a little bit. Obviously we’ve been speaking a lot about, you know, the technologies which are helping to level up the PR side of things, and PRophet AI and speaking as the founder of an AI powered product, I’m interested to hear how you approach ethical considerations, specifically in regards to things like transparency, privacy, and also bias as we mentioned earlier in the episode as well.

[00:41:31] Aaron Kwittken: Sure. So the first thing is, you know, we sit on top of OpenAI. We also use Anthropic a bit, and Azure. But we have SLAs in place with all three organizations who then passthrough to our agreements with our customers. And we guarantee to our customers that the large language models that we’re using will not use their data or breach their data to train their models. So that’s number one. 

The second thing is, when I think about bias in AI, AI is not biased. Humans are biased and humans build algorithms that then power AI, right? AI is really HI, it’s really human intelligence. So, AI is only gonna be as biased as the humans who built them. So then you need to have countermeasures and algorithms that then search for and identify biases inside of each platform, which takes time and it takes investment. We also don’t wanna over index on it. So you know, part of it is also being a much better prompt engineer, no pun intended, this is called Unprompted, but prompting in that skill is incredibly important. That’s part of training, so you have to kind of bend it. 

Where I think AI can actually battle bias is in the influencer and creator segment. So, it is a very well known fact that study after study suggest that at least if not more than 35% of Black and brown creators are paid less than their white counterparts. Why? Because the supply and demand system is opaque between a brand and an agency or a creator or an agent, or an agency that represents that creator. So they’re kind of negotiating against themselves. But wouldn’t it be interesting if in an anonymized way we’re able to upload all the contracts and scopes, levels of experience, everything down to how many posts, what they’re saying, is it a video, is it a post, what have you. And do a comparative analysis so that influencers and creators are paid for what they are worth. There’s at least parity, there’s equity, there’s more pay equity there. And then brands are also doing the right thing and making sure they’re compensating their creators and influencers the right way. 

The challenge is, is getting people to pony up the data, because if you don’t have the data, you can’t have a baseline. If you can’t have a baseline, you can’t then provide guidelines on equitable outcomes, right? But that’s just an example of how AI could be used for a force for good. Deep fakes and synthetic media that you talked about before scares the living s**t outta me. That is frightening. The three of us, if we don’t do it ourselves, can be canceled in 30 seconds by a person who uses technology they can download very easily. It’s very accessible to try to create something that makes us look a ne’er-do-well, to quote my mother. The only way to battle that is through education and advocacy and yes, you’re gonna have to have better kind of cyber validating mechanisms and watermarks, and that will happen. And it’s happening now.

So companies like Okta and Auth0 and those folks, they’re gonna do very well in this environment. At the same time, we also need to educate consumers, you know, to look a little bit closer. One of the telltale signs of a phishing email or a text is there’s usually a typo, or there’s just some horrible grammatical mistake, and you’re like, that’s not from here. AI is probably gonna fix that. So then what are you looking for? What are the other markers? And now it’s incumbent on large financial institutions and even our educational institutions to train people, humans, consumers ’cause misinformation, disinformation, is not new. The velocity and the ferocity of what it’s being spread is new.

[00:45:02] James Thomson: Just interested in your perspective as to what role you see, you know, governments and other regulatory bodies playing in ensuring that AI-based tools are used ethically. 

[00:45:13] Aaron Kwittken: Yeah, I try to think about which organization is best suited. Again, I’m thinking of the US mindset, so I apologize, but which organization, enforcement agency is best suited to handle this. And face value, I think it’s the FTC. But the FTC is kind of a toothless tiger. They issue fines and whatnot, but there’s no real criminal kind of componentry to it unless they, you know, send something over to DOJ. So I struggle with that a little bit. I do think that our professional and trade associations, so IAB, ANA, every other acronym you can think of, ECO, PRSA. They all need to, in the same way they talk about ethics, they need to come up with better guidelines. And it can’t just be around disclosure. They need to go a little bit deeper and really think about business models and roles and how this is going to fundamentally change the way we work and the economics of how we work. 

I wouldn’t leave it up to government, you know, the White House came out with, a year ago, a policy on AI and actually I wrote a piecing campaign calling it a toothless tiger. This is again, before GPT-3 and all that, so it’s complicated, but you can’t wait on the government. I think we’re gonna have to solve government. Put it this way. The government has had no control over social media platforms and that’s caused all sorts of mayhem, despair, and death in the world, right? And we can go on and on about how reckless Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, how they’ve been. Government, has had no control over that. What makes us think that the government can control AI? There’s no f**king way we have to do it ourselves. 

[00:46:44] Pete Housley: Well, at least the conversation is happening in Congress and in the White House right now, and they realize that the genie is out of the bottle and that it could end badly. So to be determined, what they do and how fast they will move. And maybe back to some of your former, you know, informative days and experience, maybe there will be a big crisis like the, you know, resulting out of AI.

[00:47:08] Aaron Kwittken: Well, yeah, it’s like the old airline scenario, right? You know, the airlines got safer after more planes were crashing. But I think, think about AI like this. Right now, AI is a toddler that’s kind of is wearing a diaper, but kind of is not. There’s still a lot of s**t all over the place. We need to rear this kid before it becomes a teenager and doesn’t listen to us anymore. So we have a very small window to raise this toddler into a great AI human right before it turns on us and becomes difficult when there’s this point of no return. 

[00:47:40] Pete Housley: Well, you know what? We’re almost outta time. But that leads me to a really interesting question and we’ve talked about human and machine interaction and clearly Aaron, your point of view today is you need to be the driver. You need to be steering, but there is AI that is machine on machine without humans. So here’s a question for you. Self-driving cars. Yes or no? 

[00:48:03] Aaron Kwittken: Hell no. And in the same way the metaverse has been and always will be bulls**t. No, no, no self-driving cars. 

[00:48:10] Pete Housley: I was reading a news story the other day, about 268 accidents that have happened with self-driving cars and they don’t know caution tape, for example, so they could go right into like a train wreck or something like that.

[00:48:22] James Thomson: I think there’s something like 1 million deaths each year caused by humans driving cars, basically. Obviously a fraction of that, y ou know, being by self-driving cars. And the thing is, which I find really interesting, is that if that was flipped on its head, and if it was 1 million deaths from self-driving cars, it would be the equivalent of the Terminator. We would turn on it with pitchfolks and fire and it would be outrage. So it’s interesting the standards. We’re obviously holding a lot of these technologies to, it’s not the same as ourselves. 

[00:48:50] Aaron Kwittken: Can I just mention, I appreciate you saying it, because when I first launched PRophet, people are like, well that’s not the right list. I’m like, oh, really? ‘Cause the list that you download of targets, the list that you downloaded of 300 names is right. Like why are you holding me to a better standard? This is more targeted and it’s a different way of looking at it. It’s flipping the script. But people can’t get their heads around that, their expectations are outrageous. 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is SaaS marketing?
2. SaaS marketing challenges
3. How to create an effective SaaS marketing strategy
4. Choose the best inbound marketing channels
5. Now that you’ve got the traffic, what’s next?
6. How to measure the effectiveness of SaaS marketing strategies
7. Definitions of commonly-used SaaS terms

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Karine Bengualid

Karine Bengualid is a freelance content writer over at Brought To You By the Letter K with a teensy penchant for Sesame Street. She writes audience-specific stories to connect brands with their ideal customers. When she’s not saving the world from un-fun marketing or researching everything about the science of fun, she’s building her animal rescue, Maison Misha.

» More blog posts by Karine Bengualid

What is SaaS marketing and how is it different from traditional marketing?

SaaS marketing is, well, marketing your SaaS products, which are often subscription-based. It is building brand and product awareness, promoting the software, differentiating between the different price tiers (if you have multiple tiers available), bringing your SaaS to market, and positioning it against the competition.

A SaaS can sometimes offer a freemium or a free trial—that’s when you either have a free tier (which customers can use for no charge, but usually with fewer bells and whistles), or a specified amount of time (often 14- or 30-day trials) where users can test out the service to see if they like it before upgrading to the paid version.

So how is marketing SaaS different from marketing more traditional products like, say, clothes or landscaping or adorable cats available for adoption?

First, because SaaS is usually sold through a subscription model, it brings along the added challenge of keeping your existing customers in order to avoid churn. So while gaining new users is critical, maintaining existing customers is even more so as it brings your LTV:CAC ratio down—which is a good thing. (Not familiar with some of these terms? Don’t worry, we’ve got definitions at the bottom of this page.)

Next, because you’re selling software—something that customers can be using day or night, anywhere in the world—your customer service and responsiveness are also very important. We all know (and don’t love) that tech has a tendency to glitch, but what’s more important is supporting your customers when they help. If your customer service isn’t tops, this will affect how users view your product.

Marketing SaaS means being able to clearly explain what your product does and how it will improve your customers’ lives (whether at home or at work). Sometimes these benefits and features can be more challenging to explain when you’re fighting against a character limit (hello Google Ads!).

And while there are some SaaS products on the market for a B2C audience, the majority are B2B so the customer journey looks a little different and could take a little longer. You also have to be able to market to your main audience (who are going to be using your product regularly) as well as speak to the decision makers (who might not ever use your product directly).

Lastly, the SaaS competition is fierce. There are an estimated 30,000+ different SaaS companies on the market today, and cutting through that digital noise can be harder than finding a needle in a haystack…in a field filled with haystacks.

SaaS marketing challenges

Every marketer faces challenges when it comes to promoting their product or service, and SaaS is no different. Here are a few of the most common challenges and how to address them.

Brand awareness

With a saturated market, how do you make your SaaS stand out from the competition? That’s where your marketing comes in (more on that below). Your focus should be on understanding and targeting your ideal customers, and creating unique content that is educational and informational. 

Customer loyalty

SaaS is a subscription-based product so ensuring your existing customers are happy and satisfied will, in turn, ensure their loyalty to your product. This can be achieved with a great customer onboarding sequence to make sure they know the ins and outs of your product. Releasing new features or fixing common bugs is also another way to ensure customers feel seen and heard.  

Customer service

Not everyone who uses your product will be tech-savvy, so it’s essential to have a customer service team that can help with support requests. Having 24/7 support available is nice but expensive, and it’s not always necessary as long as your customers get the answers they need within a quick and reasonable timeframe. It’s also a good idea to have several communication options available such as live chat, email, and phone support. 

Technical issues

Listen, cutting-edge technology might be all around us but it isn’t foolproof and neither is your SaaS. Glitches and bugs happen but what matters most is how quickly they’re fixed and how well you’re communicating. Offering customers open communication and solid support can spell the difference between customers sticking with you or jumping ship.

How to create an effective SaaS marketing strategy

As with any business, your software as a service needs a marketing plan. This will help ensure you get the word out about your SaaS, find and target your ideal customers, and help you retain customers once they’re paid subscribers.

Establish goals

As with any business or marketing plan, it’s important to start by establishing your goals. Your marketing can serve many purposes, so what is your end objective? What do you want to achieve and how will you achieve it? (We’ll talk later about how to know if or when you’ve achieved said goals in the metrics section below). 

Here are just a few example goals your marketing can help you achieve:

• Develop brand awareness
• Increase free trial signups
• Gain social media followers
• Grow lead generation
• Improve customer retention and satisfaction
• Communicate product features and benefits

Understand and identify your target audience 

You may have heard of the terms “customer personas” or “modalities.” In the simplest form, these are the types of humans who are most likely to buy your product. Since not every product is for everyone (no matter what you might wish—sigh), it’s important to understand who will get the most out of using your SaaS and how to find them. 

Speaking to your ideal customers directly in your marketing will help ensure that you are sending the right message for them to make the purchasing decision. And by knowing your customers, you know where to find them, how they approach purchasing decisions, what information they need to make these decisions, and much more. 

Ask yourself: Who will benefit from my product? If you’re building accounting software for small businesses, then CFOs at enterprise companies aren’t your core audience. On the flip side, the owners of small businesses like plumbing services, freelance graphic design, or local restaurants are right up your alley.

Now that you have some idea of the types of people who will use your software, dig a little deeper into them and pretend you’re watching a movie about their life. (It’s like The Truman Show but less weird.)

• Demographics: What is their gender, age, education, and location? 
• Business type: What industry do they work in, what kinds of titles do they have, do they own the business or work for someone else?
• Challenges: What do they struggle with, what challenges do they face, what motivates them to succeed at work? 
• Habits: Where do they get their news, what social media channels do they use, what kind of shows do they watch? 

Provide value 

The customer journey in SaaS marketing is longer than the typical B2C funnel. After all, it’s much easier to convert a customer purchasing a one-time product they already know they want versus convincing a business to sign up for a monthly subscription. 

However, this entire process is much easier when your value-centric marketing starts with understanding your target audience’s needs, challenges, and pain points. By putting your customers at the center of your strategy, you can create solutions that genuinely address their problems.

Providing value also builds trust and credibility with your audience. When customers perceive that your SaaS product or content genuinely helps them, they are more likely to trust your brand, seek out more content, and eventually become a customer.

Oh, and don’t forget the F-word. (No, not that F-word—we’re trying to keep it family-friendly around here.) You can also increase the value of your product by giving something away for Free. 

Offering free resources, like ebooks, templates, freemiums, or free trials allows potential customers to experience the value of your product first-hand prior to committing to a monthly or annual subscription. (It’s like taking the product out for a test drive but without the smarmy salesperson beside you trying to become your new best friend.)

When value is at the core of your marketing efforts, it’s easier to attract and retain customers. It also lays the foundation for sustained growth.

Choose the best inbound marketing channels

Once you’ve dug deep to learn who your ideal customers are, it’s time to discover where they hang out online and are most likely to engage with your brand. With this information in hand, you can design SaaS digital marketing campaigns around each channel. 

A paid advertising campaign will look very different from a SaaS influencer marketing campaign. And the way you promote your brand on TikTok will vary greatly from how you address your audience in email marketing. 

However, before you get excited and whiteboard your way into a matrix you can’t decipher, let’s take a look at some of the more popular channels for SaaS product marketing. Chances are you won’t use all of these, but it’s still good to understand each channel so you can choose the right ones for your product and audience. 

For example, you might be promoting a SaaS product to help non-tech-savvy small business owners use your tech to make their lives easier without breaking their brains trying to learn a new tool. If so, you’ll most likely find these people on the least techy platform—think Facebook rather than Substack.

While it can be daunting to think about budgeting for multiple SaaS digital marketing campaigns, especially if you’re a small startup, the good news is some of these channels are free. (Whew!)

SaaS content marketing 

SaaS content marketing can take on various forms, from search engine optimization (SEO) to blogging. It’s the most accessible and cost-effective option to engage with your audience and drive traffic to your website. Here are four content marketing avenues considered highly influential for SaaS businesses.

1) Blogging

Publishing educational blog posts that are relevant (and useful) to your audience provides multiple benefits. First, it sets you up as a thought leader in your industry and can bring credibility to your SaaS. You can use your blog to write about industry trends specific to your niche, present forward-thinking ideas, and offer solution-based articles (like, ahem, this one). 

Blog posts are great tools for driving traffic to your website since the more you publish, the greater the chances they’ll get found in a Google search—especially if you’ve got a solid keyword search strategy in place. 

You can also use a blog as a lead generation tool simply by inserting a call to action and maybe a form. The bottom line is: If you aren’t building out your blog, what are you waiting for?

Example: Honeybook

Honeybook is a great example of a SaaS marketed to freelancers publishing blog posts centered around, well, freelancing. As you can see they provide solution-based blogs on how to customize brochures or how to price their services (often a sticky and tricky subject for freelancers!).

Here are just a few of the things Honeybook does to make good use of their blog resources:

• A list of categories is placed on the left side, making it easy to jump directly to the type of content the reader is interested in.
• Honeybook displays thumbnail images for each blog post, creating a visual layout that pleases the eye and engages curiosity.
• The “Our editor’s picks” section highlights specific blog posts and implies that these particular posts have a lot of value to provide.
• For those who prefer watching videos to reading, Honeybook helpfully provides an easily-browsable playlist of video content. 

2) SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your content and website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). (Want to learn more about SEO? We’ve got you covered.)

SEO is crucial for SaaS content marketing because it helps your SaaS content rank higher in search results. And when your content appears on page one of Google, there’s a better chance people will click on it, increasing your organic (read: non-paid) traffic. 

SEO typically includes optimizing on-page features like meta titles, meta descriptions, header tags, and image alt tags to make your content more search engine-friendly. But It’s also about publishing content that people want to read (oops, there’s those blogs again). Google itself says high-quality, informative, and valuable content has the most influence over ranking factors. 

Other things to consider when SEO-optimizing your content:

• Backlinks
• Local SEO
• User experience
• Mobile friendliness
• Website speed

Incorporating SEO into your SaaS content marketing strategy requires a combination of research, content creation, technical optimization, and ongoing monitoring. However, it can pay off in the form of increased organic traffic and improved brand visibility. Win-win! 

3) Webinars

A webinar, short for “web seminar,” is a live or pre-recorded online presentation or workshop that allows you to interact with your audience in real-time (their real-time, not yours, if it’s pre-recorded). 

Although it can take some time and work to create a webinar—as it should with every piece of content you produce—crafting a visually appealing slide deck or finding an industry leader to guest-host is worth the effort. 

In fact, 73% of B2B marketers and sales representatives say webinars are one of the best tools for generating qualified leads. 

Example: Mailchimp

Mailchimp does a marvelous job promoting their free webinars. Here’s what they do well: 

• On a dedicated page just for workshops, you can see all the topics with a one-liner description for each.
• They offer the webinars in different time zones (the Americas, Europe and Africa, and Australia and Asia) knowing their audience is based around the world.
• They introduce the workshop host so you know who to expect going in.
• There’s an FAQ section at the bottom of the page, including how to contact support.

Webinars are an excellent platform for educating your audience about your SaaS product, industry trends, best practices, and related topics. You can provide in-depth knowledge and insights, positioning your company as a trusted source of information.

On top of this, webinars are an opportunity to engage directly with your audience. Leaving time at the end for Q&A where participants can ask questions is essentially free research. The questions your attendees ask can provide direct insights into their pain points and help you gain even deeper insights into your target audience. 

4) Podcasts

A podcast is another opportunity to connect with your audience in a more personal way. It’s not a live webinar, but it’s still a chance for your audience to hear you share your industry expertise on a regular basis—like a weekly news column or a radio show segment. 

And similar to blogs, it doesn’t always need to be centered around your SaaS product. Discuss topics that are related to your industry and provide undeniable value to your listeners. 

Example: Jobber

Jobber demonstrates this beautifully with their podcast. They offer a SaaS solution to local service-based businesses like landscaping companies, HVAC, and cleaning services. 

• They bring guests on the podcast who share their successes in a particular area of their business (customer service, new services, HR, etc.), how they got there, and the lessons they learned. 
• They include hyperlinked icons for all the major podcast hubs for quick access: Google Podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. 
• You can sign up to get podcast updates straight to your email. 
• They spread the love by promoting other industry-relevant podcasts.

While we’re on the topic of podcasts, we have one of our own that we think you’ll get a lot out of. In each episode of Unprompted you’ll join renowned marketing experts as they explore the rapidly-changing world of AI marketing and share insights into how AI can help you market your SaaS product.

Paid advertising

Paid advertising is like the travelator (y’know, those moving sidewalks in airports) of digital marketing. You could make it to your gate just by hoofin’ it normally but the travelator will get you there faster. It’s the same with the coveted number one spot in SERPs—getting there organically would just take you longer. And ain’t nobody got time for that. 

Hopping on the travelator—er, we mean, allocating budget for pay-per-click ads can give you a quick boost in traffic and even help to push your organic content closer to the top of search results. 

Paid ads aren’t only reserved for Google, though. Word on the digital street is that many B2B SaaS companies are tired of the top spots on Google being taken up by sponsored ads and are turning to Facebook and LinkedIn where they can create more personalized ads and connect with their audience. 

The other great thing about paid ads is that you have control over your budget. You can set daily or campaign budgets to avoid overspending and easily adjust your spending based on campaign performance and goals.

While paid advertising offers many advantages, it’s essential to have a well-defined strategy, set clear goals, and continually monitor and optimize your campaigns to maximize your ROAS. 

Example: Abyss Scuba Diving

Sometimes, when you’re trying to achieve your goals, you just have to dive right in. That’s exactly what Australian business Abyss Scuba Diving demonstrated when they dove into an advertising campaign strategy that boosted their average conversion rate to 35%—almost seven times the industry standard.

Here’s how they did it:

• Through PPC campaigns they targeted people in specific situations, such as international visitors applying for long-term visas to visit Australia.
• By signing up for Unbounce’s Smart Builder tool they were easily able to create effective, high-converting landing pages. 
• They employed Unbounce’s AI-powered Smart Copy and Smart Traffic tools to optimize the pages and further increase conversion rates.

Social media and SaaS influencer marketing

If you’ve logged onto Instagram or TikTok lately, you’ll notice that social media and influencer marketing kind of go hand in hand these days. From user-generated content to influencers promoting brands, it’s a 21.1 billion-dollar industry. And yet 37% of SaaS companies allocate less than $10k of their annual marketing budget to influencer marketing. 

And if you think influencer marketing is only for B2C, think again. B2B influencers can have either an ongoing relationship with brands or just do one-time collaborations. Either way, there’s gold to be found in them hills influencer relationships. 

Example: Notion

Notion sponsored Ali Abdaal’s video on his favorite note-taking app for students. Smart. Since Ali is the world’s most followed productivity expert (4.82M YouTube subscribers), that exposes Notion’s product to a whole lotta eyeballs. 

• They don’t hide the sponsorship opportunity—in fact, they promote it at the top of the video and offer 1,000 viewers a free personal plan for Notion.
• Their logo is included when Notion is brought up, and screenshots are shared even in the intro so viewers can know what’s expected.

To leverage social media and influencer marketing effectively in your SaaS marketing strategy, it’s essential to have a clear plan and a deep understanding of your target audience. Identify the right social media platforms for your audience and select influencers whose values and audience align with your brand. 

Beyond influencers, social media is still a great place to promote blog posts, product launches, and webinars. In fact, considering the average person spends 2.5 hours each day scrolling on their phone to catch up on the latest social media updates (ahem!), you’d be remiss to skip it as part of your marketing plan.

Consistency in posting, engagement with your audience, and a strategic approach to influencer partnerships can maximize the impact of these strategies on your marketing efforts.

Email marketing

A $36 ROI for every $1 spent is a solid reason to start sending emails to your followers, if you don’t already. Find an email marketing service (a SaaS for a SaaS!) that works for you and get started with the following email flows:

• Welcome series
• New free trial series
• Onboarding emails
• Milestone flow
• Weekly newsletter
• Product update campaign
• Reactivation emails

When designing and writing your emails, check out these email marketing tips to capitalize on that gargantuan ROI.

Example: Unbounce

Here at Unbounce we’ve put a lot of work into creating an effective and welcoming email experience. After signing up for Unbounce’s free trial, you get an email like this: 

• The email is nicely designed (if we do say so ourselves) with just enough white space to keep it uncluttered.
• It has a nice welcoming hello that includes my name .
• It’s clear what the email is about—my 14-day free trial that they want to help me get the most out of.
• If I want to dig deeper, there’s a video on how to use the page builders so I can jump right in.

Now that you’ve got the traffic, what’s next?

Most marketing strategies deal with how to get inbound leads to your website, but your “to do list” items (and opportunities) don’t stop there. How do you ensure they convert—sign up for your newsletter, request a demo, try your freemium tier, etc.? 

Landing pages are standalone web pages—so, part of your website, but not really—designed with a specific goal in mind, such as capturing leads, promoting a product or service, or encouraging a particular action from visitors. 

Unlike your website’s homepage or product page, which often has a myriad of distractions and menu options, landing pages are laser-focused on a single goal. 

They’re designed to convert visitors into leads or customers by presenting them with an irresistible offer like an e-book, free trial, or invite to a webinar. Yep, you should totally build a landing page for your webinar so you don’t miss out on all those valuable leads!

This hyper-focus makes it crystal clear to your audience what you want them to do, increasing the likelihood that they’ll take that action.

Let’s say someone is looking for a guide to onboarding new employees. They click on an ad in Google and are directed to a landing page where they can provide their contact information, such as their name and email address, in exchange for the ultimate guide to onboarding new employees (of course, your SaaS is the ultimate answer).

How to measure the effectiveness of SaaS marketing strategies

Here’s the thing. You could have the most bedazzled (yes, this is a thing) SaaS marketing plan in all of SaaS-land and still fall flat with your marketing efforts. The only way to make informed decisions about what’s working and what’s not is data. 

SaaS marketing metrics are the only way to measure what strategies are working and how to double-down on them. 

Here’s a quick look at some of the most common SaaS marketing metrics. (For more details about each of these, have a gander at the bottom of this page.)

• Website traffic: Measure the number of visitors, pageviews, and unique visitors to your website.
• Conversion rate: Track the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as signing up for a trial or subscribing to a newsletter.
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): Calculate how much it costs to acquire a new customer, including marketing expenses.
• Customer lifetime value (CLTV or LTV): Determine the total revenue a customer generates over their lifetime as a subscriber.
• Churn rate: Measure the percentage of customers who cancel their subscriptions.
• Monthly recurring revenue (MRR): Track the predictable monthly revenue generated from subscriptions.
• Customer retention rate: Measure the percentage of customers retained over a specific period.
• Return on investment (ROI): Calculate the return on marketing investment for specific campaigns.

Use tools like Google Analytics, Smart Traffic, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to collect and track these metrics. You can also gather feedback from customers through surveys and interviews. 

Most importantly, remember that measuring the effectiveness of your SaaS marketing strategies is an ongoing process. Take the time to regularly review your performance data, adapt to changes in the market, and refine your strategies to ensure that you are maximizing your marketing budget. 

Achieve SaaS-tainable success with your SaaS marketing

In the ever-expanding SaaS realm, effective marketing is the linchpin to success. With the SaaS market projected to reach staggering figures, it’s crucial to differentiate your product and maintain a competitive edge. 

Embarking on a SaaS marketing journey requires more than just a well-thought-out strategy. Success hinges on data-driven decision-making and the effective use of tools. 

Remember: SaaS-cessful marketing in the digital age is a marathon, not a sprint. In one year, Thinkific doubled their business growth, and Later collected more than 100,000 leads, converting 60% of them, just through landing pages.

An easy first step is to start by building high-converting SaaS landing pages fast with Unbounce’s templates. 

Regularly assessing performance data, staying attuned to market shifts, and refining strategies are the keys to not only maximizing your marketing budget but also ensuring longevity and growth.

Definitions of some commonly-used SaaS terms 

The world of SaaS also comes with its own terms that are important to know when it comes to SaaS marketing benchmarks and best practices.

Conversion rate

Simply put, your conversion rate measures how effective your page is at getting visitors to do what you want them to do. 

You can calculate your conversion rate by taking the total number of visitors and dividing it by the number of conversions your campaign has gotten. Then, multiply the result by 100 to get a percentage. (For a deeeep dive into all things related to conversion rates, check out our AI guide to conversion rate optimization.)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) 

Customers don’t grow on trees which means each new customer actually eats away at your profit. (See what I did there?)

So for every dollar (or euro, or yen, or peso) you spend on getting a paying customer, that’s one less dollar (or euro, or yen, or peso) in your pocket. 

Customer churn rate

The percentage of paying SaaS customers who cancel during a specific time period is your churn rate. Keep in mind that this does not include new customers. And in order to calculate this, you have to keep that period of time the same in order to compare apples to apples—daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. 

Customer lifetime value (CLV or LTV)

As a subscription model, SaaS customers tend to stick around for several billing cycles (read: months or years). 

Customer onboarding

Because your customers are signing up to use your product on a recurring basis, it’s important to walk them through everything they need to know. This will help ensure they have a better experience with your product. And the more successful a customer is with your software, the longer they’ll stay a loyal customer. 

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)

SaaS businesses have a predictable revenue model from subscriptions. As the name suggests, it’s how much money you can expect every month from paying customers. 

Net promoter score (NPS)

How likely is a customer to say good things about your product or service (on a scale from 1 to 10)? You’ve probably seen this one single question asked by many companies. 

This question segments users into three buckets: 

• Promoter (score of 9 or 10): customers will probably tell others about how awesome your product is
• Neutral (score 7 or 8): customers like your product but won’t go out of their way to tell others about it
• Detractor (score <7): these customers are more likely to share negative experiences with your product

Ratio CLV:CAC 

Knowing how much customers are worth to your business means knowing how much they’re worth spending on to get them through the door. If the CAC (customer acquisition cost) is $30 to get one paying customer but their CLV (customer lifetime value) is $20, then the math doesn’t math. 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is landing page optimization (LPO)?
2. When you should use a landing page
3. What to do before you build a landing page
4. The best practices of landing page optimization
5. Optimizing your landing page call to action (CTA)
6. Creating high-performing forms on your landing page
7. How to build trust with your landing page visitors
8. Driving organic traffic through landing page SEO
9. Mistakes to avoid when building your landing page
10. What to do before you publish your landing page
11. How to test and validate your landing page
12. How to report on landing page performance
13. What to do when your landing page campaign ends
14. Becoming a landing page optimization expert
15. One final thought on landing page optimization

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Garrett Hughes

Garrett is part of Unbounce’s content team. When he’s not tap-tappin’ on his keyboard, you might catch him out on the slopes, poking around fantasy hockey forums, or on a low-key adventure with his very-good-boy, Benson.

» More blog posts by Garrett Hughes

Oli Gardner

Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner has seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet. He’s obsessed with identifying and reversing bad marketing practices, and his disdain for marketers who send campaign traffic to their homepage is legendary, resulting in landing page rants that can peel paint off an unpainted wall. A prolific international keynote speaker, Oli is on a mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike. He was recently named the “The 2018 Marketer to Watch,” in the under 46 category, by his mother.

» More blog posts by Oli Gardner

Do you have abandonment issues because your landing page bounce rate is through the roof? Wasting precious time and money on ineffective PPC campaigns? Tired of your boss complaining about how the industry average conversion rate is double what you achieved last month? Donʼt know how to fix the problem?

Never fear.

With our authoritative, definitive, essential, ultimate collection of 101 landing page optimization tips—yes, you heard us, it’s all those things!—weʼll have you testing, reporting, increasing ROI, and leveling up your online marketing campaigns in no time.

The tips are broken up into 14 chapters, starting with:

What is landing page optimization (LPO)?

Landing page optimization (LPO) is the process by which you make incremental improvements and changes to each element of your page to drive leads, signups, or sales.

Optimization includes starting with best practices and data-backed insights, but it also involves testing variants (different versions of the page) to see which one performs best with your target audience. Doing so will help you increase their effectiveness and enhance your return on your investment.

More recently, artificial intelligence has become a powerful tool in landing page optimization. (We even wrote a guide to optimizing your conversion rate with AI.) For example, marketers can use AI optimization to automatically send each visitor to the landing page variant where they’re most likely to convert—helping to maximize conversions and marketing ROI.

When you should use a landing page

You probably donʼt have the time, money, or resources to use a landing page for every little idea or campaign initiative that you come up with, so here are our suggestions for when they are a relevant (and powerful) option.

Let’s start this guide with tips for when you oughta be using a landing page.

1. Use a landing page for every paid ad or email campaign 

Okay, so we literally just said you probably canʼt do this. (Jeez, this guide is off to a bumpy start.) The truth, though, is you should at least try to use landing pages for any paid campaigns.

If youʼve begun to grasp the fundamental purpose of the landing page, youʼll know that sending visitors to non-campaign-specific pages (like your homepage) is just wasting money. That’s because you’re not giving your traffic the best opportunity to convert—so you’re getting lower ROI on your marketing spend.

So: The best way to ensure that you can build a landing page for every campaign?

Develop a painless process and some standard landing page templates for the types of campaigns you do, and be ruthless about reporting on your success. If you can demonstrate that you can a) build landing pages quickly, and b) achieve improved ROI through reporting and testing, you’re well on your way to convincing your stakeholders.

2. … And when you’ve got multiple inbound traffic sources

If you’re expecting traffic from multiple sources (Google Ads, affiliates, organic search, social, email), you may want to create separate landing pages for each source to simplify the funnel and enable more distinct testing.

Thankfully, you don’t need to start from scratch each time. Once you’ve created your first landing page, you can easily duplicate it and create new versions tailored to each source of traffic.

3. … And when you’re targeting people on mobile devices

This optimization tip goes hand-in-hand with different channels, but designing for mobile is so important that it’s worth calling out on its own.

If a significant amount of your traffic comes from smartphones—either through searches, email, or social apps—even a responsive website may not be the best experience for your visitors. A mobile-first landing page, though, lets you keep people laser-focused on your conversion goal—whatever the device.

4. … And when you’ve got short-term or special promotions 

Sometimes you’ll need to launch a promotional campaign quickly. These typically come in at the last minute. If your website is clunky or you don’t have the web developer support you need to get things up quickly, you’ll need somewhere to communicate your campaigns.

Standalone landing pages are great for this because they can exist outside of your existing infrastructure. Plus, they’re easy to switch off when the campaign ends without adding unnecessary complexity to your site.

5. … And when you need to get stuff launched quickly

Sometimes you just need to get a web page up and live. But maybe you work for a big company that has a rigid deployment schedule. Sometimes they have the flexibility to break the rules, but not always.

Well, imagine itʼs Mother’s Day, and you have to get a critical message out regarding a promotion you are running, and you forgot to update the promotions page on the website. What to do?

Build a simple, focused landing page, bypassing IT (theyʼll forgive you when you show the conversion report) and getting the job done. Not ideal, but sometimes you have to think on your feet.

6. … And when your CMO or CEO has a “big idea”

Weʼve all been there.

Some creative executive type (I canʼt be too harsh here, as Iʼm one myself) comes up with a great idea that must be dealt with immediately. The simplest way to do this is in a disconnected landing page that can break code conventions, brand guidelines, and can be efficiently measured to provide instant feedback on itʼs ridiculousness.

Or maybe, perhaps, itʼll work like a charm—in which case youʼre going to be re-designing the whole site according to the new direction. Pray for failure. 

What to do before you build a landing page

For the marketers (or designers, or developers) responsible for creating a landing page, the following landing page tips will help ensure the page meets the needs of your campaign. 

7. Make sure you’ve got a creative brief

Ideally, there’ll be a well-defined concept that ties business and user goals together into a simple and implementable idea. This will help you to design something that doesnʼt stray from the goals of the campaign. 

That’s the power of a creative brief. 

If you are a small business or entrepreneur, then this might seem like a bit of a luxury (or an extreme waste of time). If you’ve never used a brief before, try searching for some examples or templates—it can be really useful to go through the process of creating a simple half-page brief just to get the idea down on paper before you commit it to the digital realm. And once you’ve done it once, it gets easier and faster.

8. Know the objectives of your campaign

Make sure you fully understand the business objective of the campaign, and—in particular—the landing page. What problem are you trying to solve? What role does it play in your marketing funnel? How does the page fit into the larger strategic picture driving company success? 

Every decision that gets made in creating a landing page should be informed by these kinds of contextual considerations.

9. Empathize with your target audience

It should go without saying that you need understand the goals and motivations of the people who’ll be arriving at your landing page. What are the main questions that a potential visitor will have? What do they already know about your product or service? What pain points are plaguing them? 

Knowing the answers will allow you to design an experience that answers these questions in priority sequence on the page. (And avoid distractions or needless repetitions.)

10. Get clear on the action you want people to take

Before you start building, you need to know the desired action of the visitor: the primary call to action. This might sound obvious, but if you don’t have a very specific idea in mind, your page can lose focus—fast. 

Sometimes, when designing your page, it’s even worth starting with the button you want folks to click, then moving backward from there.

11. Know where your visitors are coming from

Take note of all campaign entry points (email, organic, PPC, social media) and any existing collateral materials to ensure you maintain a consistent brand experience and design. 

For example: If your landing page doesnʼt match the aesthetic of a banner ad, then people will often (rightfully) assume they’re in the wrong place and leave. Avoid unnecessary bounces by keeping the visitor journey consistent, from first click through to conversion. 

12. Understand the technical limitations of your audience

Are they primarily iPhone users? Android? Windows? Mac? Are they elderly folks who still view everything at 480×600 resolution? Or are they designers with big 4K screens? 

Knowing the devices that your visitors most commonly use will help you build pages that match their context. (As a rule, we always recommend creating mobile-responsive landing pages, but sometimes it’s even better to create separate pages for separate devices.)

13. Check the availability of your campaign domain name

Did you remember to buy the domain for the campaign? 

(No? Sometimes this happens after a few beers.) 

This will normally have been checked and purchased by someone in IT, but itʼs a good idea to verify it. Strongly branded domain names can place a heavy influence on design direction, and having to patch something up at the last minute because someone forgot to get the domain will affect your time to market (which can be critical for event-based marketing).

14. Remember (and avoid) past campaign mistakes

Sounds simple, but unless you make the effort to track and record problems in previous campaigns, you’ll never learn from them. 

My suggestion? Put a big poster on the wall with the “top 10 things to avoid doing.” If you learn something from how your past landing pages perform, make sure the new people on your team know about them going forward.

15. Remember (and repeat) past campaign successes

Likewise: If something has worked in the past, repeat it in your new campaigns. Some teams get bored of their own marketing and needlessly implement changes that end up working less well than the tried-and-true. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 

This can become your own personal best practices list—a companion to this one!

16. Check out what your competitors are up to

For whatever reason, some teams really don’t like to look at what the competition is doing—either they’re intimidated or they feel like it’s a distraction. But really, you should be checking out what your competitors are up to on the regular. 

This can serve two purposes; if you need inspiration, it can give you some ideas—or if you’re trying to innovate and differentiate, you’ll be in a position to zag away from the competition.

The best practices of landing page optimization

Great—we’re ready to build our landing page! 

Sticking to the fundamentals and landing page best practices can take you from having a terrible landing page to having one that people find hard to poke holes in. Apply these optimization tips vigorously as you get started, then enhance your pages by digging into the areas we discuss later on.

17. Send people to a relevant and targeted page

Because it’s meant to serve visitors coming from all kinds of different traffic sources, your homepage is a total mish-mash of messaging. “Get 10% off your first purchase,” “check out our new product,” “meet our leadership team.” There’s a ton of stuff visitors can do and see—which means it’s hard to keep ‘em focused on your campaign goal. 

With that in mind, resist the urge to send campaign traffic to your homepage. It’s better suited to someone who organically learns about your brand than someone clicking through a PPC ad promoting a specific offer.

Remember: One goal, one message, one action. That means one page for your ads and emails—a dedicated landing page with corresponding messaging.

18. Provide a consistent visitor experience

From your ad or email, through to your landing page, and into your checkout or signup flow—your design, your messaging, and your tone should all be consistent with the expectations your visitor had when they first clicked. 

We call this “message match.” When somebody sees an ad on Facebook, it catches their attention through a combination of copy and design: the “message.” That message sets an expectation for what’ll happen when a person clicks. For example, if the ad says “Buy one pair of shoes and get one free,” the visitor will expect to end up on a page that allows them to redeem that offer.

When you don’t have message match in your visitor journey, people get confused or frustrated—and then they bounce.

Think of it this way: If your upstream ad is the source, you should be drinking from the same stream at the end of the journey as you were at the beginning. (We must be feeling parched.)

19. Remember Roxette: “Donʼt bore us… Get to the chorus”

This landing optimization page tip comes from Swedish pop duo Roxette. As one of the masters of bubblegum pop, they knew how to highlight the most important element of each song: the chorus. 

No one likes a rambler or a dillydallier. When dealing with online prospects, don’t assume you have their attention. You need to get to the point—fast.

(The astute among you will recognize that by using this analogy, we’re essentially countering our own argument.)

But sometimes, you have to provide some editorial or instructional introduction for the sake of clarity. (Marketers occasionally go a little too far in trimming their landing page copy, honestly.) If you need to say something before you “get to the chorus,” like Roxette, just make sure the juicy bits stand out.

20. Focus attention with a clear and concise headline

Imagine yourself walking down a busy street. You glance at the newspaper vending machine (those still exist, right?) to see a big, black, bold headline. 

If it captures your attention, you might stop, bend over, and read it for a while. If itʼs really good, you might fish a dollar out of your pocket and actually pay for it. But if itʼs just a big page of small type with no visible purpose, you wouldn’t even break your stride. 

The landing page optimization lesson? Make your headline very clear and easily noticeable, then put it somewhere obvious at the top of your page. It should be the first thing that your visitor notices, and it should be compelling enough to keep them reading.

21. Segment your customers and traffic sources

If you have different types of customers, build a landing page for each segment and drive traffic via separate sources. This will allow you to measure your most effective market segmentation. 

If your landing page has extended logic or geo-targeting capabilities, you may be able to create a single page with changing content based on each type of visitor. If this is the case, ensure your tracking can handle these complexities.

22. Remove any visual clutter or distractions

Did you ever see that ad campaign with a single button proclaiming “don’t click me”? Turns out, it did quite well. In fact, it was wildly successful. Nobody could resist clicking it. Not only was it a tempting bit of reverse psychology, but it also didn’t have any competing information to distract visitors. 

As you create your landing page, step back from time to time, look at it from a distance and see how many things are vying for your attention. Refine your landing page until the answer is… just one.

23. Don’t provide any on-page navigation

Similarly, donʼt give people a full-scale website experience on a landing page. You often paid to get them there, so keep ’em focused and on track. 

If they really want to know your favorite color or to look you up on Google Maps, they can go to your website another time. Each navigation option you provide dilutes their attention.

24. Keep the reading to a minimum

Chances are your offer or product doesn’t need a whole peer-reviewed thesis paper to explain it. Ensure visitors get a chance to read your most important copy right off the bat. If it’s buried in five paragraphs of text, itʼll be missed. 

An exception to this rule would be a page designed to provide a high level of detail, but this is usually best used as the deep-linked “product detail” page on the target website and not on a landing page.

25. Make the most of space “above the fold”

These days, “above the fold” isn’t relevant for every type of web pages, but it still holds true for the landing page. Your primary messaging and call to action must be above the fold (the bottom of the screen for the average browser resolution of your target market). 

Think of it this way: If a visitor doesn’t scroll down, they should still be able to get the gist of your offer and take the action you want them to take. 

26. Repeat your call to action on longer pages

Despite the existence of very successful long-form landing pages, you still need to ensure that the call to action is present above the fold and then repeated at comfortable intervals further down the page. This allows people to read while keeping the action visible when the urge to buy arrives. 

Different people react to different content, so they may be two-thirds of the way through before they believe what you’re saying. If there is a button right there, they’ll be more likely to convert when they finally form an emotional connection to your message.

27. Always maintain landing page “congruence”

“Congruence” sounds like a big word, but it just refers to the concept of ensuring that every element on your landing page refers to, or supports, your core value proposition. 

Look over your design and copy. If an element is not directly supporting your goals, then ditch it or change it so it does. Simple, right?

28. Experiment with different media types

Faster download speeds and improved compression mean that including video is no longer a technical barrier, even on mobile devices. Visitors are likely to spend more time on your site engaged in passive activities such as watching a video because itʼs easier than reading. This extra time can be the difference between someone “hearing” your message and not.

(That said, video on landing pages isn’t always the smart choice. So be sure to test.)

As with everything else, quality is king here: say something important and say it well. If you canʼt afford to build something with a high production value, then aim for a screencast—an on-screen walkthrough of your product or offer. These are intended and expected to be lo-fi and this quality can enhance the realism and authenticity of you and your approach—where the message now resides in what you say and what you show, rather than in the production value of the video.

29. Enable sharing on viral landing pages

If your goal is to create buzz with a landing page—like a quiz, game, or humor piece—ensure that it’s easily sharable. The most obvious choices for social media buzz creation are Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok, and Instagram. They can help to spread your message quickly and in an exponential fashion if what you are doing is tweet or like-worthy.

The key to success lies in the fact that social sharing is not 100% altruistic—it adds the content into your own personal timeline, letting you show off stuff that represents your personality and beliefs. It’s reminiscent of the psychology surrounding a hipster’s vinyl or book collection, where you gain pleasure from the reaction of others to your taste. Create pages that make the person sharing them look good in the eyes of their social networks.

30. Maintain campaign momentum at every step

It’s important to maintain the message of your campaign from ad to post-conversion and everything in between. Campaign momentum is about removing the break in communication that can occur after the first click and ensuring a smooth buyer journey with no surprises (except good ones!). 

The best way to maintain momentum is by repeating the offer. Show that clicking through to your landing page didn’t cause the promise to be forgotten.

31. Provide extra value on your confirmation or thank you page

If you are asking your visitors for personal data on your landing page (such as an email address for lead capture), take it one step further and give them a bonus on the thank you page. This could just be something useful, such as a link to related content on your site, or it could be an extra free downloadable or worksheet. 

Giving something away for free (or for an email address) is good marketing. Surprising someone and giving them a bonus is smart marketing.

Optimizing your landing page call to action (CTA)

Your call to action (CTA) is the primary conversion goal of a visitor to your landing page. Examples of common actions are purchasing a product, subscribing to a newsletter, calling you on the phone, downloading an ebook or whitepaper, watching a demo, or requesting information.

Optimizing your CTA can have a big impact on your conversion rate—so be sure to experiment with different copy and design to see what works best for your audience.

32. Make your copy clear and unambiguous

Generic CTAs are the death of your conversion rates. If you are offering a free ebook, for instance, then make the button say “Get your free ebook”, and not something vague like “go,” “submit,” or “subscribe.” 

(You also don’t need to tell people to “click.” They know how cursors work.)

Check out these call to action examples for some tips on writing copy that gets conversions.

33. Avoid pulling a bait and switch

Related to the previous tip, donʼt promise one thing and then deliver something else—or even worse, nothing at all. 

To follow the same example as above, if you are giving away an ebook, and your CTA says, “Get your free ebook,” donʼt ask for $2.95 on the next screen or say “thanks for registering” without a link to the product you are offering. Yes, you will have gained a lead—but because you’ve burned ‘em, the customer is now worthless, and they’ll tell others about your unscrupulous tactics.

34. “Amazing, awesome, kick-ass!”

Resist the temptation to include bloated adjectives. Such claims are likely to make people think you are overselling and trying too hard. 

The same goes with overly negative opt-outs, like making somebody click “No, I don’t want to make extra money!” to close your popup.

35. Provide a little bit of breathing room

Allow your CTA room to breathe visually. The expansive use of whitespace will allow your button or statement to stand out on the page. 

Color choice is important here also. Create a high contrast between the CTA and surrounding elements to assert its dominance on your page.

36. Keep your button where it can be seen

Donʼt let your CTA fall below the fold on the devices that your visitors are using, and if you have a long page, repeat the call to action at the bottom of the page or once on every page length to remind the user and provide them with a mechanism to act, regardless of where they are. 

More advanced designers can even create a floating CTA button that follows the reader down the page, but these aren’t always as effective because they get stripped of a little context. Test it!

37. Personalize your call to action

For example, if the desired action is for the customer to call a phone number, donʼt make them work. Provide a toll-free number, or geo-targeted local codes as required. 

You can also use features like Dynamic Text Replacement to pull copy from the ad they clicked directly onto your page.

38. Give your visitors a safety net

Not all customers are ready to engage right away. They might need some supporting information to ease their worries or answer their questions. 

If you’re asking someone to buy something, a sensible secondary CTA would be to download a product brochure. This keeps them in your realm of influence (as opposed to leaving them to do research elsewhere) and builds confidence. 

Ensure that the safety net CTA doesnʼt compete in size and visual dominance—often a simple text link is adequate, beneath the main big action button. If you’re asking someone to purchase online, offering a phone number can make a potential customer more likely to convert if that is their preferred contact method.

39. Optimize your CTA for continuity

You’ve heard of failing to see the forest for the trees. But what about failing to see the campaign for the landing page? Sometimes a focus on optimizing just one touchpoint in your buyer journey can blind you to significant opportunities to optimize elsewhere.

Carry your primary call to action throughout the entire acquisition and conversion experience, from upstream ad (PPC, email, social media post, QR code, etc.) through your landing page and on to the final destination page (if there is one). 

Evaluate the journey from the perspective of somebody who’s never been on it—are there disjointed elements? Confusing or unexpected shifts in tone or focus? Mismatched offers or products? 

All of this should be optimized.

40. Make sure your copy is audience-appropriate

If you are selling spa getaways, then donʼt be aggressive with your tone and language. (“Get ready to feel hella relaxed, bro!”) If you are offering funeral services, donʼt add six exclamation marks at the end of the call to action. 

Our study of the dominant emotions on a landing page shows that some sentiments correlate with higher conversion rates—while others can put sales and signups in the gutter. You can read more about it in the Conversion Benchmark Report.

41. Stay focused on your campaign goal

If you have only one message and action, you should be able to look at the page and have your eye immediately drawn to the action area. Donʼt place extraneous offers or navigation on the page that could draw the user into doing something else. 

In the case where you have several choices (such as different packages or pricing options), there is still a single goal (choose a package). Ensure that each action area is consistent and they are grouped in a region that can be considered the action area.

Creating high-performing forms on your landing page

Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a web visitor more than the dreaded form, especially if involves multiple steps or dozens of form fields. Follow these simple landing page tips to reduce your bounce rate on your forms.

42. Ruthlessly remove unnecessary form fields

Every Jack and Jill in your company will want some extra data from your lead capture or subscription forms. Itʼs your job as Chief Landing Page Optimization Officer to cut this down to a minimum. 

Experiment with the number of fields on your forms to see how much information your visitors are willing to provide before they give up. Do you really need to know a visitor’s fax number these days? Probably not—so try removing it and see if it improves your conversion rates.

43. Use directional cues to draw attention to the form

If your primary goal is to have someone complete a form, you should use design elements to visually direct their attention so they know what they are supposed to do. (Never assume!) Check out this resource on designing for conversion for an in-depth look at the use of directional cues.

44. Include plenty of whitespace in your layout

Donʼt crowd your form. Make it inviting, clean, and simple by surrounding it with a decent margin of clear space. (This is true of every element of your landing page, but it’s especially true of your form. Design counts!)

45. Use oversized, attention-grabbing buttons

We’re not trying to create a snotty online banking application. It’s a one-shot deal (which may still be to do with banking). As such, donʼt be afraid to design big shiny buttons that really stand out. They donʼt need to be grey or be the same height as a standard text field. Go big to stop your visitors from going home.

46. Make form labels and field text easy to read

Use a large enough font that anyone can read it easily. Web design standards are moving in the direction of form fields and text that are bigger than the previous norm, so follow suit and make your forms feel friendlier and happier (and more readable).

47. Give people a reason to fill out your form

We’ve never heard of anyone who actually likes filling out a form (even if their browser is autocompleting some of it for ‘em). Be sure to make the benefits and reward very clear and position them in context with the form so that people are constantly reminded why they are bothering.

How to build trust with your landing page visitors

Building trust may not feel like an obvious way to optimize a landing page, but it’s actually a very important factor. With the proliferation of spam, rug pulls, dubious dropshipping, and get-rich-quick schemes found in online marketing, becoming a leader with regard to trust can give your pages an instant leg up. 

The first key to success here is simply to care. Donʼt just pay lip service to this area. Itʼs more important to people than you may think.

48. Provide a phone number to establish authenticity

A phone number present tells people you are legitimate and that there are real people at the end of the line. It can also be a good fallback for people who aren’t comfortable with online transactions, but who like your offer. 

And, of course, if you’re targeting locals—for example, if you offer a service in a specific geographic area—it’s a great way for them to get in touch with you.

49. Remove any barriers to valuable content

If you are giving something away for free, but asking for personal details in exchange, offer something that really is free in advance, like a small portion of the materials you’re providing—the first couple chapters of your ebook, for example. 

This piques interest and lets people know you are not going to send them something worthless in exchange for their personal information. People like the try-before-you-buy option.

A real-world example would be the unwritten rule that it’s okay to eat a grape in the supermarket. Arguably it’s theft, but everyone likes to do it to check that the goods are, in fact, good. 

You might be thinking, “Yeah, but if the grapes are bad, people will find out and not buy them.” Exactly! If you have a great product, you shouldn’t be scared to share a little upfront. (And if you don’t have a great product… well…)

50. Ensure consistency at every stage

If your banner, landing page, and destination site donʼt feel part of the same family, you’ll lose business. The landing page falls right in the middle of the acquisition process and should extend the minimal size and copy of an ad (or email) into a real sense of brand values. 

In a world of scams and shams, brand consistency reassures your visitors that they’re not being led down the wrong path and that the product—or whatever you’re promoting—matches what’s written on the box.

51. Extend your brand messaging throughout

Ensure that your landing page design is the same from ad or email to landing page. Donʼt change the color palette and typography from one to the other. Repeat the original core message on the landing page for instant recognition and increased confidence that you are in the right place.

52. Refrain from gimmicky sales tactics

The internet is littered with so much crap that hip-waders should be the preferred footwear of today’s web surfer. No matter how much you feel the need to use the BUY NOW, BEST DEAL EVER type guff that profligates the sad lower-end of our industry, just remember one thing: authenticity rules. 

Most people see through the hype and understand when you are telling the truth. (Today, a lot of false scarcity tactics on ecommerce landing pages are probably doing more harm than good for people’s conversion rates.)

53. Avoid aggressive use of popups

If you use six popups on a single page, you should hang your head in shame as your entire customer base leaves you for a company with more integrity. Sure, you may notice a slight improvement in conversion rates in the short term, but if youʼre attracting the types of customers who click on popups simply to get the ad out of the way, they’re very unlikely to be a long-term source of revenue.

You may be in a position where you just want to present higher numbers at the weekly meeting a few times to fulfill your contract, but if you are an entrepreneur, stay away from aggressive tactics.

Use your gut—if it makes your stomach feel even a little uneasy, it probably doesnʼt make good business sense. Artfully deployed, popups and sticky bars can give your prospects the extra nudge they need but do it gently and from an authentic desire to help ‘em.

54. Use verifiable facts to back up claims

In an age of comparison shopping and online research, bold claims about your product or service may elicit skepticism on the part of the consumer). 

If what you are promising isnʼt really true, then donʼt say it. You will get caught out. Perhaps by only a few individuals—but if they turn out to be social connectors, you could quickly find yourself plastered all over the blogosphere with devastating consequences. 

Keep your brand healthy by avoiding any claims that erode trust.

55. Include endorsements from recognized sources

If you have affiliations with well-known people or businesses, use their endorsements to build credibility. (Company logos, written testimonials, and even short videos can play this role.) Social proof like this can provide the extra uplift your messaging needs to convince people to buy.

Iʼm pretty sure that Proactiv isnʼt some miracle cure for acne, but Iʼm willing to suspend that doubt purely because the celebrities promoting it are placing their reputation on the line.

56. Donʼt ask for information you don’t really need

Sure, there are five people in your office beating down your door asking for an extra phone number or age or favorite pair of underwear—sometimes qualified leads are overqualified—but if itʼs not critical to the information or product being requested on your landing page, then donʼt risk scaring people away. Chances are that the extra information will be scantily used anyway.

57. Put your legalese in laypersonʼs terms

If you need to have a terms and conditions page or section, try to put the important stuff in layperson’s terms. Better yet, make it entertaining, by separating it into two segments—the T&C that keeps the legal teams happy, and the T&C for the rest of us.

58. Gather real testimonials from customers

Testimonials work to create trust on your landing pages. But resist the urge to use false or made-up ones. If you invent overly enthusiastic statements using caricatures of stereotypical personas, and position them with images grabbed from stock photo sites, you’ll do more harm than good. 

If you have a great product or service and you treat your customers well, testimonials will either come to you or you’ll have established the relationships where you can go and ask for them. Wait for that great customer story that could be the tipping point in making people believe your landing page message, something that shows you have affected someone’s life or business. 

If you don’t have a great testimonial yet, increase the feedback mechanisms on your website to allow your customers to provide the information you need.

59. Add certification and brand logos

This is a classic technique to garner trust. If you have awards or recognition through a review site like G2, wear it proudly on your sleeve. However, itʼs important to use relevant and well-known brands in your alignment strategy. 

There are plenty of certifications out there that aren’t any more trusted than you are. Saying you are part of the Viagra Sellers Alliance probably wonʼt help you convert retirees into paying customers for a trek in the Andes.

60. Use professional landing page design

Often, the more expensive you look, the more believable your story will appear. In this case, money talks. 

You still need the right call to action and landing page copy, but paying attention to landing page design can make a huge difference, too. As single people often learn, a beautiful apartment with picture-perfect interior design can make the difference between stopping by for coffee and stopping by for coffee. 

61. Donʼt exaggerate about your product or service

Following on from the last point, if you oversell yourself in the living room, you may very well attract your guest into the bedroom, only to find that they leave at the sight of the real thing.

62. Address potential concerns around privacy

As the internet has grown up, ensuring visitor privacy has become a bigger and bigger concern for marketers. Provide links to a privacy statement (or add it to your terms and services page) to quell fears of email abuse and misuse of personal information. 

A good technique is to write, “Weʼll never sell your email address” in close proximity to your lead gen form, and make sure you’re adhering to local privacy laws (like GDPR) when it comes to disclosure and consent.

63. Invest in co-branding and partnerships

Partners drive traffic to your business, often to a landing page. Using a co-branded landing page can enhance the ad message momentum and improve your conversion rate. This provides the customer with the confidence that their intended goal is being maintained. 

For example, if an affiliate is offering a discount coupon (something they have arranged with you so that they can attract customers based on this special deal), the customer needs to know that when they click from the initiating site over to your landing page, the offer hasn’t been “digitally disregarded.”

65. Use internal linking on SEO landing pages

While campaign landing pages often exist in isolation, driving visitors from an ad further down your funnel, organic landing pages on your site need to be accessible and integrated into your site structure through internal links. Any single page (“orphan”) that doesn’t sit within an architecture of internal linking is going to struggle a bit when it comes to ranking well. 

66. Write long-form copy to hit more keywords

Campaign landing pages generally need to be short and focused to convert at their best. Organic landing pages need enough content that Google deems them worthy of a high spot in the search results. For this reason, you probably don’t want to try to create a hybrid page.

With well-written copy, long-form landing pages can convert just as well as their shorter counterparts—so don’t be afraid to be a little verbose on pages meant to rank.

67. Provide a valuable resource to gain backlinks from others

Most evergreen landing pages exist for the purpose of lead gen. If you give away something (a whitepaper or ebook) that contains excellent content you are more likely to attract inbound links, which will give your site a healthy boost in rankings and drive new visitors to your landing page.

68. Make sure your page loads super fast

All the great content in the world won’t help you if you haven’t nailed page speed, especially on mobile devices. These days, huge media or script files, excessive use of website plugins, and poor hosting are the usual culprits. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to get a sense of how you’re doing.

Mistakes to avoid when building your landing page

Weʼve all had horrible online experiences: trolls, scammers, dark patterns, and unscrupulous merchants seemingly lurk around every corner. Even though the web has evolved a lot since 2010 (or 1995), the standards for good digital marketing remain quite low. 

Follow these landing page optimization tips to avoid annoying potential leads and customers.

69. Don’t ramble on (if you can avoid it)

Keep it short and sweet. Although there are occasionally applications for long-form landing pages, 99% of landing pages benefit from going shorter. 

How short? To paraphrase Steve Krug (author of “Donʼt Make Me Think”), cut your copy in half and then throw away half of what is left.

70. Don’t lie to your customers

To be an effective marketer, you simply must deliver on your promises. Treat people well, and theyʼll tell their friends. Treat people poorly and they’ll tell their friends. Get the problem? (We’d extend the definition of lying to “soft lies” like fake scarcity tactics and countdown timers, but you do you.) 

71. Donʼt include a form if you donʼt need it

If you can honestly get away without a form, donʼt be greedy and throw one in there because it would be nice to be able to capture some data. Keep it out and reap the benefits of a slimmed-down landing page. 

If you are trying to extend your brand exposure and expertise with a free white paper, consider giving it away without the email capture—but make sure each page is branded with your identity and contact information. If itʼs worth itʼs salt, people will share it, and you get more visitors as a result. You also get plenty of karma points.

72. Don’t blast ‘em with music (or a video)

If your page requires sound to function, then ensure that you provide the facility to control the volume, including a prominent mute button. And for goodness’ sake, start with any videos muted. (Subtitles are a great idea here, and not just for accessibility.)

If someone is viewing your page during quiet time—on their commute, or at the office—sudden sounds can be a surefire way to drive them to the close button.

73. Don’t do lead gen with the intention to spam

This is more of an email marketing tip, but still. Keep your communication with your leads on-topic and avoid sending them unasked-for communications. (Make it clear with the landing page, thank you page, and follow-up email what they’ll be receiving and how often.) If they are completing a form to get your whitepaper on gardening, don’t start sending them emails about motorbikes. 

We’d recommend reading “Permission Marketing” by Seth Godin for more good behavior ideas.

74. Donʼt use “free” photos you found on the internet

Free images often aren’t free, especially the ones that appears first in a search of Google images. And even if you avoid (or don’t care about) international copywriting law, chances are that by using them, youʼll appear generic and untrustworthy. 

Instead, we’d recommend asking for ad budget to take your own photos, using a high-quality stock photo library, or even jumping on a free resource like Unsplash. (No relation.)

75. Don’t assume your visitors know everything

Donʼt make assumptions about what your visitors already know. If you know your product or your market really well, it’s very easy to forget that other people haven’t had the benefit of your experience. 

Put yourself in the shoes of somebody completely new and anticipate their questions and objectives. Then make sure you address them on the page. This will help prevent people from going elsewhere to find their answers and potentially finding a better offer. (Sometimes, usability tests and customer research can help too.)

If you’re looking for another book recommendation on this topic, we’d recommend “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath.

76. Don’t prevent people from opting out

No form should feel like forever. If someone is registering with you for a newsletter or ongoing communication, make it clear that they will be able to easily opt out at any time. Saying this upfront is often the tipping point between someone saying “okay, sure” and “no way.”

What to do before you publish your landing page

It is tempting to be impatient and “get it out the door” as soon as you can, but it pays to take a few deep breaths and do some final checks and balances before you start pushing traffic to your landing pages. Remember, conversion-optimized landing pages do best when you set yourself up for success from the very beginning. 

77. Have a pre-publish checklist

This is a tip in itself, and the next few items will explain some of the tasks you should perform as part of this checklist. If you can establish a checklist and incorporate it into your process, you will soon start to develop good habits that produce better, more effective landing pages.

Make sure you’ve got somebody on your team (maybe you?) who is accountable for checking everything off in the right order.

78. Apply the five-second rule

If you’re on a budget, you can do some simple usability and page goal testing using people in your office (or friends and family). A good rule of thumb is to follow the five-second rule. 

Sit your subject in front of a computer screen and show them the page for five seconds. Then hide it and ask them what the purpose of the page was. If they are unclear, you may need to re-address the communication of the primary message and call to action. You can also crowdsource this activity through a service like Five Second Test.

79. Get as many eyes on it as possible

If you work in an office, print your landing page out and pin it to the wall so that people can see it. This will open up a discussion about your design. Often, an objective set of eyeballs will spot simple things that can help refine the page before you push it live. 

This is also a good way to increase collaboration. Youʼll be surprised at some of the skills or insights your co-workers can provide, even (especially!) non-marketers. Invite them to drop some stickies on it too. (If you’re hybrid or work remotely, you can also use tools like Miro or Figma.)

80. Spend some time on quality assurance

You can’t afford to have any typos or errors on your landing pages. With such a short time to convince a visitor that you have something of value, even minor slip-ups can cost you a sale. Make sure it looks good in the major web browsers your target market uses. Fortunately, most landing pages are relatively simple, but donʼt forget to check.

Some companies have this built into their process. Others are too small and rely on the founder to do everything. But even in large companies, small marketing campaigns often get the short end of the stick, and they donʼt have a dedicated person for quality assurance. 

We’d recommend you establish a QA process a few hours (or even days) before your landing page goes live so you have the time to fix any mistakes that crop up.

How to test and validate your landing page

Many marketing departments rely solely on gut instinct and personal opinion instead of landing page conversion optimization. (Often the personal opinion of the most senior person on the team, too.) Be prepared to throw that out the window and start achieving real insight into what works and what doesnʼt.

81. A/B test to validate your decisions

Simply put, A/B testing allows you to perform simple comparative campaign studies, allowing you to produce alternate designs and messaging and see which performs the best. Having a testing infrastructure in place is critical to being able to measure your success. 

Remember, though: in most cases, you can only test one variable at a time. Below, we’ve listed a few options to get you started.

82. Test the primary image(s) or photography

Most campaigns are intended for a specific segment or user demographic. As such, itʼs a good idea to try different images that provide varied emotional responses. The smiling happy old fly-fisherman may well evoke a happy retirement, but some people can be thrown off by generic stock imagery.

83. Test your primary message

Write multiple variations on your main message and run tests on each. If you’ve been handed a few possible messages from your product marketing team, landing pages can be a great way of seeing which ones actually resonate. (Also, try varying the size and color of the text.)

84. Test your call to action

For testing purposes, youʼll want to try varying the message in your main CTA. Ensure itʼs an accurate description of what the user will get when they act on it to avoid trust and annoyance issues.

85. Test your CTA button color

There are many viewpoints out there regarding button color. Some say that red is the best color to use as it evokes such strong emotional reactions, but itʼs also a negative “stop” type color, so be sure to test it with others like green for “go” and blue as a familiar web standard link/action color. 

To be honest, contrast is more important than color. Ask yourself: does your button pop?

86. Test your form threshold

For lead capture and other forms, you will want to minimize the number of fields that visitors are required to complete. However, if you have a particularly strong need for data, try running an A/B/C/D/E test with varying amounts of information gathering. This way, you can make an informed decision about what abandonment rate is acceptable when weighed against the extra data produced.

87. Constantly refine and optimize

If you have new ideas, test them immediately! The more information you glean the better your landing pages will become. 

Donʼt stop at the first A/B test. Brainstorm areas of the page that should be tested and throw up two, three, four, or five different versions.

88. Use AI optimization to get a leg up

All this testing takes time and traffic that smaller teams and companies don’t necessarily have. Fortunately, today’s marketers have access to AI-powered optimization tools like Smart Traffic that do more sophisticated testing with way less effort. 

In Smart Traffic’s case, you create multiple variants and it automatically routes visitors to the one that’s most likely to convert ‘em—getting you (on average) 30% more leads, sales, and signups.

How to report on landing page performance

Marketing campaigns without metrics and reporting are like a runaway train. Yes, they make you more accountable, but if you’re good at what you do—or at least desire to become better—accountability can make you a rock star. It’s a great way to show off the value of landing page conversion optimization too. 

Here are some tips to get you started.

89. Use analytics software to analyze KPIs

If you donʼt have internal analytics software, you can get set up quickly and for free by using Google Analytics, or several paid options such as KISSMetrics.com, GetClicky.com, or LeadsRx. By adding simple code snippets to your landing pages youʼll be tracking results immediately and can prove/disprove theories (sorry boss, making the logo bigger killed our conversion rate) and start to produce professional reports.

90. Track the essential metrics (at the very least) 

The good news is that you don’t need to be an analyst to use basic metrics. Ensure you’re recording the fundamental performance metrics for each campaign. These are campaign-specific but can include conversion rate (broad term), bounce and abandonment rate, and form completion rate. 

Store these results so you have a basis for showing how your refinement process (via A/B testing) is working, and to allow comparative reporting against previous campaigns that had the same goals.

91. Pay attention to the finer details

There are a lot of factors that might impact your conversion rates, and often a good analytics tool can help you tease them out. 

For instance, using analytics can help you determine whether different time or day segments are more successful than others. If you have an increased conversion rate on Friday nights and weekends, and little to no success during midweek, you can either focus your efforts purely on the best days, or start A/B testing different messaging on the lower days to see if an altered communication strategy will lift the metrics at those times. You will undoubtedly learn something about your visitor’s behavior by doing this.

92. Be transparent at all times

Compile frequent and regular reports and make them accessible to as many people as your internal bureaucracy will allow. Success can inspire an entire team  orcompany, and failure can elicit useful feedback from people able to spot issues you might have become blind to. 

And trust us… as much as you may want to impress your boss, it’s better to be honest now rather than hide unflattering metrics and see the consequences later on.

93. Be cautious of the industry averages

Industry averages are often bandied around to show comparative results for your particular vertical. 

While somewhat skewed by virtue of the fact that their campaign, goals, timing, budget, and product are all different from yours, they can play an important role in showing where you stand in the competitive landscape. Particularly if you are above average. In other words, use with discretion. 

(You can read more about how to work with averages in our Conversion Benchmark Report.)

94. Gather and analyze customer feedback

Sometimes, metric mania can lead to focusing on strictly quantitative data, but qualitative data—like customer feedback—is just as useful. If you are gathering consumer feedback via a landing page, collating this serves two purposes. 

Firstly, it gives you great presentation materials for internal meetings. Secondly, you can start to use them on your next campaign as testimonials to boost credibility and trust. Just remember to ask permission before quoting somebody publicly.

95. Use eye-tracking and heat mapping

If you have some budget available, eye-tracking reports can give you valuable insight into where people are looking and help you increase the positioning of key elements. 

Similar to eye tracking, there is software available (like CrazyEgg and HotJar) that can show heat map overlays showing where people are clicking most. Use this information to manipulate and test copy in the most popular areas to see if you can increase conversions.

96. Consider assumed attention hotspots

Other systems can produce a virtual heat map based on assumed attention areas based on graphical contrast and basic design patterns (like Attention Insight). All of these tools can add to your understanding of landing page behavior.

What to do when your landing page campaign ends

Diligent attention to the success or failure of your campaigns will help you learn and grow as a digital marketer. Try to study what youʼve done after itʼs finished.

97. Perform a postmortem

After each landing page campaign, hold a postmortem session to analyze and agree on what worked and what didnʼt. This can then be fed back into your best practices lists. 

You can include elements of the landing page and campaign itself, but also issues around your working process, feedback from stakeholders or customers, and even lessons learned from having to make the thing.

98. Evergreen your campaigns

Running seasonal campaigns (like a Christmas landing page with a special promotion) is often a good idea. But if you donʼt need to take it down, donʼt. You can gain trickle traffic and SEO value by leaving a page in place, even if you are not directly sending traffic to it. 

And if you decide to reactivate the campaign in the future, having a live page that Google has been aware of for 6-12 months is a major benefit. If the campaign was time-sensitive, consider a quick change to make it more generic so that you can leave it up. 

Becoming a landing page optimization expert

Now you understand how to optimize your landing pages—but maybe you should optimize your career while you’re at it? 

Gone are the days when digital marketers really needed to prove themselves. A lot of companies have grown very big thanks to smart online marketing. But how to get ahead as an internet marketer is still something of a mystery. Consider this section a little bonus advice. 

99. Demonstrate your optimization expertise

If you follow the guidelines presented in this list and can report accurately on your results, you will be seen as the person to go to for improved marketing ROI. Keep reading and subscribe to the Unbounce blog (and other resources, we don’t mind!) to stay up to date on the latest.

100. Donʼt be smug about what you think you know

Assuming that you know everything and that your landing pages are infallible is naive. A humble approach to testing, validation, and experimentation is the best way to become a better practitioner. The fact that we are listing 101 tips here illustrates the complexities involved in such a seemingly simple concept. (And, really, we could add 101 more with little effort.)

One final thought on landing page optimization

101. Optimization is a mindset—so never stop testing

You’ve made it this far—and that’s great! 

Maybe some of the landing page optimization tips you just read were obvious to you, or maybe you’ve already spent some time implementing some of them. Just don’t be complacent. Remember that there’s always another percentage point of conversion waiting around the corner to be squeezed out of your customers. 

By using a landing page platform like Unbounce, you can cut down on the amount of time you spend building and increase the time you spend optimizing your pages.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is a call to action?
2. How to write effective CTAs
3. The different types of CTAs
4. Real-world CTA examples
5. Bonus tips and even more call to action examples

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Emily Bauer

Emily is a freelance writer and content marketer from Toronto. She helps tech companies and startups develop awesome content for their blogs, websites, and social media. When she’s not writing or thinking about writing, Emily can be found chilling on her yoga mat, loitering in bookstores, or exploring the city with her super cute (and super spoiled) corgi, Wilbert.

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Paul Park

Paul is a writer on Unbounce’s content team who lives and breathes storytelling. (It’s like oxygen but with better plotlines!) Ask him what he’s up to at any given moment and you’ll get answers ranging from folding paper dragons (y’know, origami) to catching up on the latest cool tech, and finding other ways to channel his inner geek.

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What is a “call to action,” anyway?

A call to action is exactly what it sounds like: you’re literally calling on your audience to take a specific action. This might be clicking a “buy now” button on a sales page, filling out a lead generation form to download a free ebook,” or asking them to sign up for a free trial.

Calls to action can serve as the final step in the conversion process. After the rest of your awesome landing page experience has attracted the visitor’s attention, aroused their interest, and made them want what you’re offering, the call to action is the last, crucial step that gently nudges them towards actually taking the action you want them to take.

What happens if you don’t have a good call to action on your page? Well, despite all the great work that the other elements of your landing page have done to bring your visitor along the conversion funnel, without well-designed CTAs your customers will make like a rubber ball and bounce.

And nobody wants that. (Especially us—there’s a reason we’re called Unbounce, after all.) So let’s explore how to do CTAs right.

How to write an effective call to action

Knowing the elements that make for a truly compelling offer (and understanding why they work) is the first step to crafting the perfect CTAs for just about every use case.

So, what makes a CTA effective? Let’s start by looking at some of the hard-and-fast rules for creating irresistible calls to action.

1. Grab the audience’s attention

Before you can persuade a visitor to do anything, they need to first notice the call to action. Use a combination of font, design, and placement on the page to ensure your CTA button or form jumps out from the rest of the content—even during a quick skim.

2. Make a single, specific request

Your CTA is not the place to play hard to get. Instead, tell readers exactly what you want them to do. Though there are various ways to use calls to action, the general rule is that it should align with a single conversion goal at the center of your campaign.

3. Tell them what comes next

Use plain language to set expectations and tell users exactly what they’ll get from clicking. People are less likely to click on a link if they don’t know where it’s taking them, so be clear on what the next step will be—whether it’s a pricing page to “compare phone plans,” an account creation page to “start your free trial,” or a registration form to “join [your] community.”

4. Motivate readers to click

Use action-oriented language that focuses on results. The basic approach is to include action verbs (like “get,” “download,” “start,” “reserve,” and “grab”) to build momentum. You can also experiment with first-person point-of-view (“Give me my deal”), positive affirmations (“Yes, I want to 10X my ROI”), and creating a sense of urgency (“In limited supply. Claim yours today!”).

5. Optimize and test

Sometimes the best approach to writing calls to action is to test out several variations. When it comes to optimizing copy, a call to action is one of the easiest things to swap out (and even small changes can make a big impact on your conversions). Smart Traffic uses AI to analyze your visitors and automatically display the most effective CTA to each person.

The different types of CTAs and how to use them successfully

There are several different types of CTAs you might leverage at different points of your marketing funnel. Everything from your campaign goal to your audience awareness should influence how you write calls to action for your sales pages, landing pages, and lead generation forms.

These examples of CTAs are the most common types marketers need to master:

Lead generation

A lead generation call to action helps identify viable leads. Whether the prompt is to download a piece of gated content, register for an upcoming event or webinar, or request a quote from the sales team, lead generation CTAs nudge leads to raise their hand and share details that help qualify them.

Click-through CTAs 

In many cases, lead nurturing campaigns feature call to action buttons designed specifically to get viewers to click. This could be part of an email campaign, a social media ad, or a landing page, but the aim is always to boost product awareness (“Get a sneak peek at our upcoming release”) and aid discovery (“Click to learn more about this awesome gadget!”).

Sales and signups

In the right place at the right time, calls to action can fuel sales and convert leads into customers. That means targeting leads who are ready to “buy now”—like those who click through to your sales landing page—and using action-oriented language. This applies to account creation (perhaps for a trial, paid account, or freemium version of the service) and ecommerce checkout pages. (Want to learn more about how ecommerce brands are using landing pages to drive sales? Check out 27 ecommerce landing page examples to maximize sales in 2023.)

Click-to-call buttons

Rather than filling out a form or collecting data about leads, a click-to-call button gives prospects a direct line to reach your team. Not only is this convenient, but click-to-call CTAs can be combined with A/B testing and call tracking to boost lead generation. (For an example of just how well this can work, check out how clever call tracking helped this agency get 219% more leads.)

Social engagement

Brands that successfully promote their products and services on social media use calls to action to drive engagement. By asking viewers to follow, share, like, comment, or smash that subscribe button, you can broaden your reach, increase your following, and build relationships with potential customers.

An important question to keep in mind: What’s the single, most important action you want your potential customers to take at this point in their conversion journey? Try to narrow it down—your landing page or marketing campaign is most effective when it’s built around a single conversion goal. That conversion goal is represented on the page as a call to action. 

In other words, don’t throw a bunch of options at the reader. Keep your eye on the (single) prize, and your potential customers will, too.

Next, we’ll explore the most popular use cases using real-world call to action examples from Unbounce customers.

15 kick-butt call to action examples

Unbounce customers are using CTAs to drive customer actions across a range of industries and use cases. Use these great CTA examples to inspire your next CTA, or A/B test ‘em against one that’s not doing so well. 

The call to action examples shown below are divided into the following types:

• CTAs with strong copy and good design
• CTAs that do more with less
• CTAs that bend the rules, in a good way
• CTAs that use the rule of threes

CTA examples that combine strong copy with good design

It’s a simple equation: (good copy) + (good visuals) = (good CTA). Here are some examples.

The Listings Lab | “Fill your calendar with appointments” (gated content)

Here’s a call to action example from The Listings Lab that reminds us CTAs don’t exist in a vacuum. Even the smartest CTA button copy doesn’t work magic without an assist from a strong headline, supporting copy, and visual cues. Not only is the button itself designed to stand out, but there’s literally an arrow directing readers from the small print to the CTA.

Why this approach is effective

• By promising to show real estate agents how to “fill [their] calendar with appointments” without “working more hours,” the Listings Lab creates some serious incentive for agents to “get [their] free download.” (Alec Baldwin’s character from Glengarry Glen Ross would probably approve.) 
• Plus, the headline serves as a clever way to qualify leads by speaking directly to agents who are “stuck at 6-figures.”

There are tons of ways to match gated content with a simple call to action to generate leads. For more real-world examples like this one, take a look at 8 High-Converting Lead Generation Landing Page Examples.

Procurify | “Explore our platform →” (clickthrough)

Well-written copy is an essential part of every CTA ( says the writer), but design elements also play an important role in establishing an enjoyable experience. On this Procurify page, when the visitor hovers the mouse cursor over the CTA buttons or taps the button on a touchscreen, the arrow inside the circle “lights up.” This makes the page feel responsive and gives the visitor the sense that something is actually happening when they click or tap.

Why this approach is effective

Sometimes it’s the little things that can make a difference. 

• By adding a small interactive design element to their CTA buttons, Procurify makes the landing page experience feel more engaging. It’s basically a small reward for performing a desired action, like giving your dog a treat for doing a trick properly (but without all the doggy drool).

For some tips on how to create CTA templates that will make people want to click, see How to build and optimize CTA buttons that convert.

Indochino: “The tailor is in” (appointment booking)

By letting visuals of their suits do much of the selling, Indochino shows potential customers what they can aspire to, rather than telling them why they should book an appointment. In this context, their approach makes sense. Afterall, Indochino doesn’t sell one-size-fits-all clothing—but they do aim to make all of their customers look their best.

Why this approach is effective

• The call to action itself (a basic, “Book an appointment”) comes across as more of a low-pressure invitation than a marketing move. 
• However, they also sweeten the incentive and create a minor sense of urgency by mentioning that booking your appointment by a certain date will enter you into a draw for a “perfectly tailored wardrobe.”

CTA examples that do more with less

Sometimes simpler is better, like you’ll see with these CTA examples.

CloudSpot | “Get your app” (app download)

In this example, CloudSpot uses a lead magnet to attract potential customers, build an email list, and drive app downloads. The entire page is perfectly catered to their target audience (wedding and portrait photographers), which immediately tells leads that they’ve landed in the right place. 

Why this approach is effective

• The call to action is written with the audience in mind. By encouraging readers to “Get YOUR App” instead of “Get OUR app,” CloudSpot cleverly places further emphasis on the reader and draws them into the page. 
• Plus, by promising to help photographers “replace awkward, unnatural moments” with more flattering poses, the benefits are clearly stated in terms related to the audience’s pain points.

Moona | “The science” (information resource)

Moona knows that sleeping on a cool pillow is the best, but some page visitors might need to be educated about the benefits of the Moona pillow-cooling system. An explanation of the science behind how temperature regulation can improve sleep helps visitors not only understand but also feel why this product is for them.

This CTA starts off with copy that makes a bold, attention-grabbing statement (“A cool head means better sleep”), then invites the visitor to click through and dive into the science with a simple, yet clear CTA button message that identifies what the visitor will see next: “The science.” 

Why this approach is effective

In the most effective CTAs all the elements work well together, creating a cohesive message that informs, convinces, and spurs the reader to action. This CTA accomplishes that well by setting up a strong expectation (which is aided by the image of the person peacefully enjoying some ZZZs), then clearly identifying the next step. 

Waldo Contacts: “Get ready to see happiness” (free trial)

The secret to good copywriting is balancing cleverness with clarity. It’s not always an easy balance, but Waldo’s tagline “Get ready to see happiness” is both cute and concise, making it perfect for this contact lens subscription service—especially when paired with a straightforward benefits statement and a direct CTA.

Why this approach is effective

This call to action example by Waldo effectively drives website visitors to start a free trial because even though the tagline leans towards clever, the call to action button itself is 100% clear about the reader’s next step (“Start your free trial”).

CTA examples that bend the rules, but do it well

Ever heard the quote “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist,” (which might or might not have been said by Pablo Picasso)? Well, even if the creators of these CTA buttons never heard of that, they’re certainly channeling the spirit of it.

Sourcebooks: “Enter to WIN a signed copy!” (Contest entry)

Sourcebooks used this landing page to attract leads interested in winning a signed copy of The Similars by Rebecca Hanover. The contest served two valuable purposes: to get people excited for the book (and boost future sales from those who don’t win a free copy) and to build a targeted list of potential leads (by collecting contact info from those who are most interested in this particular genre and author).

Why this approach is effective

Although we typically don’t recommend CTA buttons that simply say “submit,” in this case the heading encourages readers to fill out the form (“Enter to WIN a signed copy!”) so it might still be effective. It’d be worth testing out more actionable copy on the button itself (like “Sign me up!” or “I want to win!”) to see how it impacts conversions.

The round button in the top left corner presents a second, competing call to action (“Click here for an excerpt”). Interestingly enough, this strategy also goes against conventional advice, which would be to focus on one call to action per page to prevent diluting your conversions. However, it works well in this use case because the main CTA is not related to a purchase and because the secondary CTA is an option to preview an excerpt from the book—which actually adds value to the main action of entering the contest, rather than competing.

Athabasca University: “Let’s get you started” (program registration)

Athabasca University uses landing pages like the one above to drive enrollment for online courses. In this case, they use a soft CTA above the form to get visitors to fill it out. Like we mentioned in the Athabasca University example above,  although  “submit” doesn’t usually make for the best button copy, the clear simplicity of it works well here.

The heading “Let’s get you started…” is less of an order to do something and more of a supportive pat on the back. This tells prospective students, right from the get-go, the school is ready to provide support and help them achieve their goals.

Why this approach is effective

The biggest lesson here is that writing for your audience and speaking to their needs is more important than blindly following any hard and fast rules for call to action writing. If you’re looking to improve your conversion rate for signups or account creation, check out some more of our tips for creating signup pages that convert.

Awayco: “Free the funk” (equipment rental)

The use case for this example is a bit different, so the approach is a bit different, too. Awayco is an equipment rental company for surfers and other outdoor enthusiasts. The call to action changes a bit throughout the page, ranging from “Free the funk” to “Book the board” to “I’d like to ride that.” It’s this last one, in particular, that’s interesting because rather than simply asking visitors to do something, Awayco is putting words directly into their mouths—and potentially putting ideas into their heads.

Why this approach is effective

Trying out different calls to action is kind of like A/B testing within a single landing page. (If you have a heatmap set up on the page, you can see which one visitors click more often.) But more importantly, the variety of CTAs give Awayco more opportunities to play with language and show their audience that they’re on the same, ahem, wavelength.

CTA examples that use the rule of threes

For some inexplicable reason, people are attracted to lists of items in threes, like “blood, sweat, and tears” or “snap, crackle, and pop.” A similar principle can apply to CTAs on a page.

Shoelace: “Download the deck” (free download)

As a Good Witch once said, if you want a wish to come true you must repeat it three times (I’m paraphrasing here).

Why this approach is effective

By repeating the exact same call to action three times throughout this landing page (“Download the Deck”), Shoelace keeps the desired action top of mind and reinforces the visitor’s next step at the end of each benefits section. It also keeps the CTA buttons conveniently within reach, so the visitor doesn’t need to scroll far to reach a button—something that’s especially important on mobile.

We also love this example simply because the landing page and call to action design both embody the pop-art animated aesthetic of the brand perfectly—and you can bet the deck matches it as well.

ClaimCompass: “Claim your compensation” (clickthrough)

Much like the Shoelace example above, ClaimCompass drives home the audience’s goal by repeating the call to action three times.

Why this approach is effective

ClaimCompass switches  up the wording for each CTA in an attempt to match the reader’s intent.

They start off with the most forward phrasing at the top of the page (“Claim your compensation”) and tailor the next call to action to readers who are scrolling further for more information—perhaps because they’re unsure if they qualify (“Check if your flight is eligible”). At the very bottom of the page, ClaimCompass ends with the most urgent version of the call to action (“Check your flight now”) to re-engage leads who have scrolled to the bottom.

Bonus tips to keep in mind (+4 more call to action examples)

If you’re still searching for inspiration, there are plenty of awesome call to action examples out there in the wild. Here are a few lessons you can learn from big-name brands.

Match the messaging to your product

At first glance, there’s not a lot going on here on this Wealthsimple page, and that’s a big part of what makes this call to action example worth showcasing. The three-word headline and straightforward messaging explain exactly what the product does in the simplest way possible. Not only is this plain old good copy, but the simplicity is also a nod to just how easy it is to “get started.”

Why this approach is effective 

This page appeals to those who don’t want to make their own investing choices or actively manage their funds. The clean, simple design and basic language mirror the hands-off user experience offered by this platform. The minimalist messaging aligns with their easy onboarding and low-touch product experience.

The biggest lesson from this example? Keep your page design and call to action minimalist for low-touch products. Or, to apply this more generally, match the messaging to your product and audience pain points.

Use two-step user flows to gauge (and grow) commitment 

Glo shows off  a great example of how different CTAs can be used at specific points in the customer journey to build momentum and investment.

When leads first visit the page above, they’re invited to start a 15-day free trial. Rather than taking those who click “Try us free” straight to the sign-up page, leads are redirected to a landing page designed to learn more about them.

Why this approach is effective

Everything about this user flow is designed to increase adoption and retention. By inviting prospects to customize their practice (with a casual, non-committal “Sounds good,” no less), Glo is taking advantage of leads’ interest and drawing them deeper into the app experience before they’ve even taken their first class.

Of course, those who click “No thanks” are simply redirected to complete registration. But if you do decide to “design your unique practice,” you’re telling Glo about your skill level and class preferences—which not only gets you more invested in using the app, but also allows them to provide custom recommendations and keep you engaged with relevant messaging.

Nip objections in the bud

We’re highlighting this Honey page because it’s such a simple, smart example of catering directly to your ideal audience. In this case, the target customer is budget-conscious, which is why they’re interested in the product in the first place. They’re looking for savings and likely wary of hidden fees or extra expenses. That’s why the button doesn’t just say “Add to Chrome.”

Why this approach is effective

By clarifying that Honey is free to download, the call to action provides extra context and pre-emptively addresses the most relevant customer objection: the cost (especially for a coupon-finding extension).

Play up customer FOMO

How often do people “reserve” shoes before they’re available? Most of us probably don’t—at least, not outside of a compelling Kickstarter campaign. Yet, that’s exactly what Vessi is encouraging website visitors to do in this unconventional CTA example.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is landing page analysis?
2. Why is landing page analysis important?
3. Seven key landing page metrics
4. Tools and techniques for measuring landing pages
5. How to optimize landing pages through analytics insights

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Melody Sinclair-Brooks

Serving as Content Marketing Manager at AgencyAnalytics, Melody is a SaaS marketer and startup consultant with a background in brain science. With nearly a decade of experience working in rapidly scaling online businesses, she is passionate about transforming data into actionable marketing strategies.

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That’s where measuring landing pages through analytics comes into play. When you truly understand what makes a landing page tick, you create experiences that look good but also convert like a dream time and time again.

Don’t leave success up to chance–dive into this guide on optimizing landing pages through analytics. (Don’t worry, it’s scalable!) 

First things first.

What is landing page analysis?

Landing page analysis zeroes in on the effectiveness of your landing page. It’s not just about tallying visitors; it’s telling you whether they’re taking the actions you’ve set out for them, be it signing up, making a purchase, or any other desired outcome.

Marketers need the right analytics tools to gather data on visitor interactions and provide a clear picture of landing page performance before optimizing landing pages through analytics.

Landing page metrics shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of your page. Key metrics for landing page analysis include conversion rate, bounce rate, time on page, and click-through rate (CTR).

The importance of landing page analysis

You want to supercharge your conversion rates, right? (Well, duh.) To do that you’ll need to get to know your customers, and landing page analysis is crucial for understanding the nuances of user behavior and preferences on your landing pages.

Understanding the why behind landing page metrics

Through detailed landing page analysis, marketers can delve into specific landing page metrics, offering a clearer picture of user actions. For instance, if many visitors abandon a sign-up halfway, you wanna start asking yourself questions like:

• Is the form too lengthy? 
• Are there technical issues?
• Or perhaps the call to action isn’t enticing enough?

By measuring landing pages through analytics, you pinpoint these issues so you can address them effectively.

The bigger picture of landing page analytics

While landing page metrics provide invaluable data, they’re just one piece of the puzzle. To get the thousand-foot view, you’ll probably want to merge this data with other contextual insights. For example, a sudden traffic surge might be due to a new PPC campaign, a shoutout from a renowned influencer on Instagram, or even a seasonal event. 

To see beyond the numbers, combine your landing page data with every relevant platform source into live custom dashboards to enhance your data analysis.

Every landing page click counts

Each click on your landing page is more than just a number; it’s part of a story about your strategy’s success and your audience’s engagement. 

Here’s why every click is important:

• Interest gauge: Each click reflects a user’s curiosity and engagement with your content.
• Conversion pathway: Clicks are the stepping stones leading users to desired outcomes, be they purchases or registrations.
• Content feedback: A high click-through rate shows your content is aligned with audience expectations.
• SEO boost: More clicks can improve your visibility on search engine results.
• Revenue potential: For ad-driven sites, every ad click translates to earnings (cha-ching!).
• Insightful data: Click patterns offer insights into user behavior, guiding future optimizations.
• User journey mapping: Analyzing clicks helps craft effective user experiences, leading to better conversions.

The evolution of landing page analytics in optimization

The tools and techniques for landing page analysis have evolved significantly, especially with the integration of AI in landing page optimization. 

Just as industry giants like Netflix and Google utilize AI analytics to fine-tune user experiences, marketers can harness similar AI-driven insights for landing pages. By analyzing user interactions, AI gives you recommendations you can act on to enhance landing page design, content, and overall user experience. 

As these AI systems gobble down more data, they can offer up more precise suggestions for improving landing page elements based on user behaviors, trends, and preferences. This evolution ensures that landing pages are not just optimized for today’s audience but are also prepared to adapt to future shifts in user behavior and preferences.

Seven key landing page metrics every marketer should know

Before we get into the tools, we need to know what to use the tools on. Here are the KPIs that matter when it comes to optimizing landing pages through analytics. 

Benchmarking your landing page success

Defining the success of your landing pages often hinges on the landing page metrics above. But how can you be certain that your page is not just performing, but excelling in its category? 

One way is by checking out industry benchmarks. The Unbounce Conversion Benchmark Report analyzed over 44,000 landing pages and 33 million conversions, providing you with actionable insights into conversion rates and a heckuva lot more.

While industry benchmarks provide valuable insights, it’s essential to remember that every business and target audience is unique. So if you don’t have a benchmark for landing page analysis, you don’t have to navigate it blindly! 

All you gotta do is create your own benchmarks over time by continuously tracking your landing page metrics. This iterative approach allows you to understand your audience better, refine your landing page strategies, and achieve consistent growth.

Tools and techniques for measuring landing pages

The right analytics tools not only provide insights into landing page performance but also empower you to make informed, strategic decisions.

Google Analytics: the gold standard

Google Analytics, particularly its latest version GA4, remains the go-to tool for many marketers when it comes to analyzing website and landing page performance. Its comprehensive features, user-friendly interface, and integration capabilities make it a staple in any digital marketer’s toolkit.

What is a landing page in GA4?

GA4 defines a “landing page” as the first page a user views during a session on your website. It’s the first step of the user’s journey. This could be your homepage, a product page, or any other page the user lands on after clicking a link or ad. Understanding which pages are frequently used as landing pages can provide insights into where your traffic is coming from and what content is drawing users in.

How to track landing page performance in GA4

Regularly reviewing and analyzing your landing page performance in GA4 will ensure you stay on top of user behaviors and trends, allowing you to adapt and refine your strategies accordingly.

Step 1. Log into your GA4 account. (If you haven’t set up GA4 yet, you’ll need to do so first.)

Step 2. Navigate to the ‘Reports’ section. Here, you’ll find a variety of pre-configured reports.

Step 3. Click on ‘Life cycle’ and then ‘Engagement’. This will show you metrics related to user behavior, including landing page data.

Step 4: Locate the ‘Landing Pages’ report. This report provides a breakdown of all the landing pages through which users entered your site.

Step 5: Analyze Key Metrics: Within the landing pages report, you can view metrics like sessions, bounce rate, and average session duration for each landing page. This helps you understand which pages are performing well and which might need a li’l love and attention.

Step 6: Set Up Goals: For more advanced tracking, you can set specific goals in GA4 to measure conversions or other desired actions on your landing pages.

Step 7: Segment and Filter: Use the segmenting and filtering options to dive deeper into specific traffic sources, user behaviors, or device types.

While GA4 provides a wealth of data, it’s not the entire story. The real value comes from interpreting this data and making informed decisions to optimize your landing pages further. Which brings us to…

Advanced tools for in-depth analysis

Optimizing landing pages often leads to a pivotal question: How can you streamline the optimization process to get impressive conversion rates without throwing tons of money or time at it? This challenge becomes even more pronounced when managing multiple clients, each with their own unique set of landing page metrics.

In such scenarios, the value of robust marketing reporting software like AgencyAnalytics’ drag and drop report builder becomes crystal clear. Such software not only presents metrics in a way that’s easy on the eyes (and brain), but also allows for intuitive trend spotting within landing page metrics.

With access to over 75 marketing integrations, it lets you combine your landing page metrics with other campaigns, from Facebook Ads to Google Ads, and easily view the ROI of your marketing efforts. 

Meanwhile, effortlessly choosing specific date ranges for comparison becomes super valuable, enabling you to gauge progress, spot trends, and make informed, data-driven decisions.

It all comes down to this: Whether you’re benchmarking against industry standards or your own historical data, the key is consistent monitoring and optimization.

Optimizing landing pages through analytics insights

By measuring landing pages through analytics, you can gain a deeper understanding of user behavior, preferences, and conversion paths. But what do you do with these insights? In other words, how can you make these insights work for you?

A smart way to explore conversion optimization

So you’ve pored through the data reports and pinpointed some key areas that seem ripe for improvement and, hopefully, increased conversions. Now it’s time to explore your options and test them out.

Unbounce’s Smart Traffic was born for situations like this. (No, seriously—it was literally designed for this type of scenario.) Based on your data analysis, you can set up some variants of your SaaS landing page that you want to test, maybe with different headers or images or CTAs (our easy-to-use, AI-powered Smart Builder tool is perfect for this!).

Then activate Smart Traffic. It uses AI to analyze visitor attributes and automatically directs them to the landing page variant where they’re most likely to convert. 

Here’s how it stands out above the rest:

• Flexible testing: Whether you’re tweaking the headline, changing images, or experimenting with call-to-actions, you can create unlimited variants of your landing page to be evaluated simultaneously. 

• Rapid insights: After as few as 50 visits, Smart Traffic starts directing visitors to the most suitable page variant, leading to an average increase of 30% in sales and signups.

• Continuous learning: The more data Smart Traffic processes, the better it becomes at predicting and optimizing for user behavior.

For those who have multiple hypotheses or lack the time for extended A/B tests, Smart Traffic is a game-changer. It’s like having a dedicated optimization expert in your toolkit, continuously learning and adapting to get you the best results (and they don’t even need to take breaks for lunch).

A/B testing: the continuous improvement cycle

While Smart Traffic offers a dynamic approach to optimization, traditional A/B testing still has its place. It’s ideal for those times when you want to test a specific element on your landing page or when you’re aiming to find the “champion” version of your page. Just keep in mind, it needs a significant amount of traffic and time to achieve statistical significance so a test of just 10 visits probably won’t provide useful results.

One thing to keep in mind about landing page testing: It should never be a “one and done” type of thing. In order to squeeze as many conversions out of your landing pages as possible, keep exploring variants and testing (with Smart Traffic or A/B testing). Rinse and repeat until you’ve got the results you’re looking for. 

This data-driven approach of optimizing landing pages through analytics both enhances the user experience and drives better conversion rates—that’s a win-win!

User feedback: the human element in optimization

Beyond analytics and AI-driven tools, never underestimate the power of direct user feedback. It provides invaluable insights into user preferences, pain points, and suggestions. By integrating this feedback with landing page metrics, you can create a more holistic optimization strategy that resonates with your target audience.

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How this marketing agency uses AI to 10x their conversion rates

March 13, 2023 . 16 minute read

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And that’s exactly what production company World of Wonder did, using AI. They were able to automatically optimize their marketing campaigns by sending each and every visitor to their best-matched landing page—and increase their overall conversion rate by 19.7%.

But how’d they do it, exactly?

As the production company behind mega-hit shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race, the World of Wonder team didn’t have the time and resources to experiment with AI optimization and truly see what their landing pages are made of. They’ve got a race to put on, dangit!

So, Unbounce proposed an experiment: Let’s try optimizing your campaigns with Smart Traffic and see if we can pump up the conversion rates—without so much as lifting a (perfectly manicured) finger. 

World of Wonder’s response? Oh, heck yeah. 

For the full story, let’s hit the runway.

Who is World of Wonder?

We’re all born naked, and the rest is drag.

World of Wonder is best known for producing RuPaul’s Drag Race, hosting RuPaul’s DragCon, and forming The Drag Defense Fund in partnership with the ACLU. Not a bad li’l portfolio. 

As existing users of Unbounce, the World of Wonder team was eager to test and optimize their landing pages—but time was always slippin’ away from them. They were busy producing really awesome shows, after all. That’s where Unbounce and World of Wonder saw an opportunity to experiment with AI. Here’s Maggie Tielker, Designer at World of Wonder, setting the stage:

We build these pages with our best knowledge and intention, but we haven’t really done a lot of testing at all—so it’ll be cool just to see what really works. I’m all for using AI as a tool to help us. I do think for certain things you need a human to come in and then do their magic but anything that helps us get there is great.

With so many entities under the World of Wonder umbrella, it’s important for the team to expose their worldwide audience to all that they have to offer. That’s why one of the goals of this experiment was to build brand awareness outside of the Drag Race brand. 

“World of Wonder is an LGBTQ+ brand and company, but we try not to market ourselves that way because it really reinforces the misperception that the LGBTQ+ world is niche,” explains Kelly Dirck, the Chief of Staff at World of Wonder. “We’re trying to break out of the box people try to put queer brands in.”

Drag Race’s popularity in North America is well-established, but their audience might not know just how far the brand’s reach goes. There are actually 20 international versions of the hit show that audiences can watch on World of Wonder Presents Plus, the company’s very own streaming service. (Uhm, sign us up.) And not everybody knows about DragCon, World of Wonder’s in-person events in Los Angeles and London where drag fans, artists, and people just like ‘em can meet up and share their love of drag together. (Sign us up, again.)

World of Wonder had already launched landing pages to promote their live events and other initiatives. The question was whether AI could help make those pages more impactful.

Show-stopping experiments with Smart Traffic 

The hypothesis for World of Wonder’s experiment was simple: If we test Smart Traffic on three different campaign landing pages over a four-week period, will we see increased conversion rates?

(Frankly, the Unbounce team had a hunch that we would—but play along.)

When we asked why they chose to try out Smart Traffic’s AI, Maggie says, “Sometimes we just get in the weeds with what we’re trying to accomplish with a page. And for me, I’m maybe not putting myself in the shoes of the user as much as I should. OK, this person is looking for where to watch Drag Race in Mexico. What is the simplest way to show that to them without bogging them down with too much info?” 

Smart Traffic was the ideal tool for World of Wonder. Informed by historical conversion data, it uses AI to evaluate visitor attributes—like location and device—and directs them to the landing page variant where they’re most likely to convert. And with Unbounce, spinning up new variants is as simple as clicking a button. Maggie, Designer at World of Wonder, says:

We’re always doing so many projects, events, and landing pages that we’re always just trying to get things out the door. But some of this stuff is so simple that I don’t see why we couldn’t just throw up a variant with Smart Traffic. It’s pretty quick and it’s not like you have to change the whole page.

As a benchmark, media and entertainment pages typically convert around 7.9%. So, taking a look at World of Wonder’s existing pages and their conversion rates, the Unbounce crew set out to see what could yield better results.

And low and behold, there was an overall conversion lift of 19.7% across the three pages—with even better results for some specific page variants.

Landing page #1: DragCon UK event

This page’s goal is all about lead generation for the London live event of DragCon. The question was, how can World of Wonder create buzz and excitement on a page that is just a placeholder? And how do visuals, copy, and even layouts affect conversions? Great questions, indeed.

The four variants included:

1. CTA box differentiation with size and color
2. Hyper-visual to generate excitement/interest
3. Added value prop, replace video with image
4. Different layout, color experimentation, bolded CTA

It’s always good to know that making small tweaks can have such an impact.

Overall, the conversion rate for this page was 31.88%, with an overall increased conversion rate from Smart Traffic of 19.1%. Here’s how each variant performed:
 

Landing page #2: Vegas live show

A special event landing page with the main focus on ticket sales. The theories we wanted to test: 

• How do images compare to videos on an event page? 
• Does the wording on the CTA button affect clicks?
• Do more (of the same) CTAs throughout the page lead to more clicks? 

To get answers, we experimented with the layout and length of the page, with CTA frequency throughout the page, and tried different visuals and videos. So we landed on two variants:

1. Focusing the attention on the CTA
2. Using different visuals and more CTAs

The results were clear with an overall conversion rate of 54.07%, and Smart Traffic managed to increase the conversion rate by 10.51%. Slay!  

Landing page #3: Drag Race streaming

Because World of Wonder Presents Plus isn’t as well-known as, say, Netflix or Disney+, the fans don’t know where they can go to watch all the versions and specials of Drag Race. So, the goal for this page was to increase streaming service sign-ups. 

The question on everyone’s mind: How do small changes—like changing the CTA color and size, adding a headline, or changing the background—affect conversion and engagement rates? The focus was on the header image, the copy, size, and color of the CTA button, and copy used in the headline and demonstrating the streamer’s value proposition. 

The experiment resulted with three variants:

1. Adding clearer value prop in the copy
2. Color-reversed, action-oriented CTA button
3. Featuring video content in background, instead of a static image

Smart Traffic led the charge with an increased conversion rate of 29.74%, where the overall conversion rate was still an impressive 13.56%. 

AI marketing tools (like Smart Traffic) can stay

The results were definitely clear that [Smart Traffic] was successful.

Kelly, Chief of Staff at World of Wonder, seems impressed by the results. But what about the technosapiens of it all? Does using these AI tools mean we’re going to be replaced? 

Not quite. Both Maggie and Kelly agree that AI is a great asset to have to support their work—a helping hand, rather than something that might replace them. It’s a tool you can build off of, something to make your job easier and faster. Especially if you’re busy making some of the best TV in the world. And the World of Wonder team is all about it. 

“We’re always doing so many projects, events, and landing pages that we’re always just trying to get things out the door. But some of this stuff is so simple that I don’t see why we couldn’t just throw up a variant with Smart Traffic. It’s pretty quick and it’s not like you have to change the whole page.” – Maggie Tielker, Designer, World of Wonder. 

And that’s the beauty of using an AI tool like Smart Traffic. You don’t have to put in the guesswork or run the tests and organize the backend. It does it all for you, you just have to approve the variant. 

So the moral of this story is: If you aren’t optimizing your landing pages, that’s basically self-sabotage.  

So you better work… on optimizing those landing pages. And with The AI guide to conversion rate optimization (CRO), you can get your very own master’s degree in fierce conversions.

World of Wonder wants you to do good in the world 

But at the end of the day, World of Wonder stands for something bigger than just conversions. 

Beyond television, World of Wonder is partnered with the ACLU for The Drag Defense Fund in protection of LGBTQ+ rights. The LGBTQ+ community are no strangers to facing threats and censorship not only across the US, but across the globe. And what better way to support something good in the world? 
Kelly, the Chief of Staff at World of Wonder, puts it best:

The freedom to express ourselves and our gender identity in creative ways fuels artistry across our country and culture – and Drag is protected by the First Amendment like any creative expression such as dance, fashion, and music. That’s why RuPaul’s Drag Race, MTV, and World of Wonder are proud to donate to ‘The Drag Defense Fund’ in support of the ACLU’s LGBTQ+ rights work.”

Awareness is crucial. Taking action is even better. So what are you waiting for? Donate to The Drag Defense Fund.

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Paul Park

Paul is a writer on Unbounce’s content team who lives and breathes storytelling. (It’s like oxygen but with better plotlines!) Ask him what he’s up to at any given moment and you’ll get answers ranging from folding paper dragons (y’know, origami) to catching up on the latest cool tech, and finding other ways to channel his inner geek.

» More blog posts by Paul Park

In this episode of Unprompted, regular host Pete Housley welcomes new co-host Banafshe Salehi, Unbounce Content Creator and Copywriter, and returning guest Saba El-Hilo, Unbounce’s Senior Vice President of Data and Engineering, for a lively and insightful discussion about seven new specialized AI tools that might make your marketing life better.

Following up on the popular “Try AI” episode, our three intrepid podcasters bring more marketing AI tool reviews to the table. By ranking them on the Bounce-o-Meter scale (there’s a whole thing behind that), they reveal why some AI tools deserve top spot on your “Add to My AI Toolkit” list, while others, well, miss the mark.

During the episode they also share other juicy tidbits including:

• Is ChatGPT already on its way out the door due to declining quality?
• How to provide customer service so amazing that you’ll get a job offer out of it. 
• Why Google’s new Duet AI assistant can be both exciting and creepy at the same time.

Will any of these specialized AI tools help you and your team blow your marketing goals out of the water? You’ll have to listen (or scan through the transcript below) to find out.

Episode 8: Try AI—Part Deux

[00:00:00] Pete Housley: Hey marketers, I have two burning questions for you today. Where are you on your AI adoption curve and where is your company on your AI maturity curve? I hope by now both of these questions are on your mind. And that you are moving forward. Otherwise, robots may be coming for your job. Welcome to Unprompted, a podcast about AI marketing, and you. I, of course, am Pete Housely, chief Marketing Officer at Unbounce. And Unbounce is the AI powered landing page builder with smart features that drive superior conversion rates. We have big news today, and thanks to our listening audience, we’ve reached a new milestone with over 30,000 downloads. Super exciting, and we’re happy to be building this movement.

Today is episode eight and we are reprising a fan fave. Today we’re calling our episode Try AI—Part Deux, where we review a bunch of cool and innovative AI tools. Our first Try AI episode has been our most downloaded episode to date with over 10,000 downloads, and so we thought, we would bring you more tools and to be honest, tools I think I’m actually going to deploy here at Unbounce. I’m also super excited to bring back today our very special guest, Saba El-Hilo, who is our SVP of Data and Engineering, who has a really good eye, and I might add, an extra level of scrutiny for our AI tool review. But before we bring on our guest, I want to introduce my co-host today. Today I’m joined by one of our future leaders at Unbounce Banafshe Salehi. Banafshe is one of our content creators and a copywriter who has more than seven years of experience in content and brand from B2C to agencies and now the world of SaaS. She is a creative strategist through and through, working on conceptualizing marketing campaigns, white papers, multimedia projects, and so on. But I’m hoping and assuming that in the last week or two, Banafshe has played the role of AI researcher. Banafshe, welcome to the show as my co-host and what is on your AI mind these days? 

[00:03:06] Banafshe Salehi: Thank you so much for having me, Pete. You definitely flatter me too much. I have to say I’ve been loving adopting the AI researcher personality. So for me, you know, like I’m a content creator and creative and I have this secret obsession with pop culture. So it’s been really interesting to see all of my interests intersect in the current writer strike, actually. So we know that Gen AI has taken over marketing, it’s taken over our lives. ChatGPT has been used by pretty much everyone I know, but one of the interesting places that gen AI is showing up, it is within the current SAG actors/writers strike. So if you haven’t heard about this, this is essentially a discussion of AI between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and now it’s one of the longest running strikes in Hollywood, which is crazy. As technology is kind of advancing and creators are faced with the fact that some AI tools are gonna be taking over their jobs, maybe, actors are concerned about their digital likeness replacing them, and writers are concerned about losing their credibility to things like ChatGPT. So now they’re trying to kind of gain back that legal and creative control. And to me that’s really inspiring as a creative. And I think it’s gonna show up in all of our careers at some point or another. And I think that future is closer rather than further away. So, I’m really inspired by that at the moment. 

[00:04:55] Pete Housley: Well, I think that’s such a good thought starter for today’s discussion because we do talk about our robots coming for our job, and clearly there’s a craft out there which could be threatened and could also affect the amount of jobs in the writing community. Alright. So Banafshe, as a writer and a content creator yourself and someone who was also, you know, sensitive to AI, where are you personally on your AI adoption curve?

[00:05:29] Banafshe Salehi: For me, I think I kind of fall in the middle. Honestly, when I was faced with ChatGPT and other Gen AI tools, I was kind of mind boggled in the beginning, ’cause I was like, oh my God, this is a huge percentage of my role. How am I gonna compete with this tool? It’s so much faster than me. It’s gonna spit back results like 10 times faster than I ever could. But once I got around to playing with it, I think it came to a point where I was like, okay, ChatGPT is great if you wanna create content fast. But it doesn’t have that human point of view. It doesn’t have that level of creativity that a writer can bring to the table. So for me, I would use it in the beginning to kind of like see where I could go with it if it could inspire things for me. So I would say when I first started using ChatGPT, I was around like 25%. And now I think a bit of my creative ego is involved as well. Like I wanna prove myself and see if by adopting more kind of sophisticated gen AI tools, I could get better results or set myself apart from the competition as well. But I am curious about how these tools that we’re gonna be talking about are gonna affect that point of view. If I have a more specialized tool in my corner, I might feel extremely differently about it.

[00:06:59] Pete Housley: All right, let’s shift gears a little bit and what we try to do in each episode is just reprise some of the stories in the news. And today we’ve sort of found a few stories that really are about generally what’s happening with AI adoption. So my first news story, and I love the big sources. I love when credible media outlets or the big five consulting companies come up with a point of view. So McKinsey just published their state of AI in 2023, and their findings, fact not opinion, is that roughly a third of professionals in tech and communications and a quarter in business, including finance and legal, are regularly using Gen AI in their work. Now, just think when we started this journey four or five months ago, there was no scenario that companies were at one third or a quarter of adoption in their work and underneath that, and kind of notably, most organizations report efforts to reskill human workers with AI rather than replace them. Saba, why don’t you just give us a little bit of an overview about reskilling, because we’ve talked about prompt engineers, but tell us a little bit about how your team might be re-skilling to embrace AI.

[00:08:33] Saba El-Hilo: Yeah, great question. So I don’t know if it’s as much as re-skilling as education around the tools and just the products are coming out and how to use them with your existing roles and jobs. So for us, for example, the engineering team is really excited about Microsoft’s Co-pilot within GitHub, right? So we’re going ahead and giving our engineers and developers the tools to see what are the impacts are gonna be on the job and how it’s going to increase velocity and development happiness.

[00:09:07] Pete Housley: That’s great to hear. And I’m seeing examples throughout our organization of AI adoption and AI learning and AI study. Banafshe, what have you got for us in terms of in the news? 

[00:09:21] Banafshe Salehi: So I came across this article from Vox actually, that’s talking about how is the AI boom already on its way out. So Gen AI obviously exploded onto the scene and had like a huge amount of attention. Everyone was looking at it in 2023, but some of the enthusiasm is kind of waning a little bit. It seems that ChatGPT is losing users for the first time and I don’t think any of us expected that this early. And there’s reports that the platform’s outputs have gotten less accurate and the quality is kind of dropping as we go along. And consumer research is showing that the new AI powered Bing is also not making the impact that people were expecting. And it’s nothing compared to Google’s shares of users. So it’s really interesting to think about because when you think about other tech advancements like the Metaverse or crypto, and how quickly they entered into the general consciousness, they pretty quickly exited. Also, like no one is talking about the Metaverse anymore. So there’s this question of, is the AI boom kind of on the same trajectory, or does something need to change here? 

[00:10:30] Pete Housley: Well, it’s interesting. I think that on one hand, conversational AI and ChatGPT was really the tip of the iceberg. It was the pop culture, consumer facing, easy to use movement that we all had experience with, and it probably got high initial trial and settling down, but the AI boom is across so many more aspects than just conversational AI and that’s, I think we’ll unpack a little bit about that today. Let’s just segue into when we think about AI or generative AI on it’s on its own. It’s cool, but it needs to solve a specific problem. For marketers or for business users. So I do believe these specialized tools will help us work smarter to solve problems. So with that in mind, Banafshe, would you be kind enough to introduce today’s episode and theme?

[00:11:43] Banafshe Salehi: Of course. So we are bringing back Try AI baby. It’s encore time. So in the last Try AI episode, we reviewed tools like Anyword, Wondercraft, Munch. But now in this episode, we wanna be covering more specialized AI tools that kind of are responding to your more nuanced questions and are looking for nuanced solutions as well.

[00:12:14] Pete Housley: Alright, then let’s introduce our secret sauce today. Saba El-Hilo is our SVP of Data and Engineering. So smart on so many levels, and Saba’s career includes over 10 years of engineering, building top performing and innovative products. She has deep experience working with big data, machine learning technologies and web applications. So Saba, what’s on your AI mind these days? And I also wanna hear about your thoughts on Google’s announcement yesterday. What happened is that Google has unveiled a torrent of AI tools directly aimed at large business, including a souped up version of their Duet AI assistant. 

[00:13:02] Saba El-Hilo: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s top of what’s on my mind coming out from yesterday and today. So I don’t know about you, Pete, but I spend a lot of time writing docs, announcements, putting together slide decks, you know, as part of the job. So I have to say, I was pretty damn excited about Google’s announcement with Duet AI, which is an AI assistant for their product suite. So things like Gmail, Meet, and Drive, and according to Google, Duet will start joining your meetings, take notes and provide summaries so you don’t even have to go to some meetings at some point. Very creepy, but also kind of exciting for me, like writing announcements or putting together docs are not technical, is not something that excites me in my day to day. So I definitely look for tools to help there. So if Duet can help me consolidate some of those products that I’m already using, I’m definitely on board. I think it’s gonna be really, for me, really interesting to see how Google is gonna handle some of the limitations with the underlying AI models. So we all know, like these models tend to hallucinate, they can return inaccurate data. There’s a whole lot of privacy and data challenges, so, the tech is so new and we’re seeing all these big players like Google and Microsoft just build their entire suites and incorporate their entire suites on top of this tech. So it’s like building a car while driving it. So gonna be exciting to see how that all plays out.

[00:14:36] Pete Housley: That’s amazing to me. I love the ability to use conversational AI to pull together data sets because my expectation of all of my marketers are that they rely on data to make informed decisions. Not everyone does know how to shape data, but they might know how to ask questions about what data would solve. And so we are seeing that Google is really stepping up to this idea as well. Alright, Banafshe, tell us how it works. What are the rules of our tool review today and what do you need Saba and I to communicate to our audience? 

[00:15:19] Banafshe Salehi: So essentially, based on the first Try AI episode, we had this rating system called the Bounce-o-Meter. And where that comes from is that in our first ever episode, we did a marketing campaign solely based off of AI that was about bouncing elephants. So the Bounce-o-Meter is the system that’s covering three scoring points. So the first one is three out of three bouncing elephants. That means this tool is incredible. You should try it. Right now it’s hitting all of the marks. If it’s getting two out of three, that means that we’re intrigued, but we are not sure entirely. We would try a demo, but we’ll see how it goes after that. If it’s getting one out of three, that means that it was probably a bit overhyped or maybe it was just for the sake of the fact that it had AI in it, that it has been overhyped, could be a number of reasons. For good measure, we’ve added zero out of three bouncing elephants. That means that we need to talk to the robot that made this because we need a refund immediately. 

[00:16:33] Pete Housley: Saba, how would you like to kick us off today with our first tool review? 

[00:16:39] Saba El-Hilo: Yeah, let’s do it. So I reviewed ThoughtSpot. So ThoughtSpot is a product that connects directly to your data warehouse. So that could be Redshift, Snowflake, whatever your data warehouse of choice is, and then it allows you to ask questions about your data using natural language. So no SQL required. I picked this tool because honestly, if you had asked me a few years ago as a leader, what is the most important skill? And I would’ve told you, learn how to write SQL. ‘Cause you need data, you need to be able to make decisions based on data and there’s no more powerful way other than going in there and answering and getting some of those questions yourself. So yeah, sign up for the free trial and they have a demo data set in there and that you can ask any questions against. And I have to say I was really, really impressed. Again, granted, it’s a very small dataset. It’s a very clean dataset. It’s made for the demo, but I was able to ask it all kinds of different questions such as revenue, product specific questions. What’s neat is all the responses came back visualized as a graph and already ready for you to add them to a dashboard that you can share with the rest of the organization. So there’s a really powerful natural language engine there that’s allowing you to basically, in plain English, ask those questions. And in the backend is translating it to SQL on top of the data. It’s very impactful because it’s democratizing. The ability for leaders and decision makers to ask questions against their data, and you no longer have to rely on an internal analytics team to build those dashboards or give you answers to the questions that you have. But with all that, of course, there’s a major risk of like, what happens when AI gets it wrong? Now you’re making decisions on a bad data poll or a bad dashboard, and interestingly enough, ThoughtSpot has a disclaimer around that, but I’m intrigued enough that I’d actually wanna see how this performs on a large data set and multiple tables where you can use their automatic join functionality. As for the pricing, it really looks like it depends on the size of data. So you could be looking at $2,500 a month, which is not cheap. But you know, if you are a leader and a decision maker who wants to get faster insights and dashboards without the reliance of a team to build that out for you, I think this product is definitely for you and given all that, I actually give it a three bouncing elephants. 

[00:19:03] Pete Housley: Wow. Coming from you, Saba. A three. That is big, big news and it’s interesting. Saba, $2,500 a month is a lot less than a data scientist and a lot less than a business analyst. So I am super excited by this technology and I’m assuming that we will embrace it in some way, shape, or form, whether that be through some of the Google tools or whether that be through this that could sit right on your raw data. So that was a great one. Banafshe, what have you been up to in your AI research? 

[00:19:42] Banafshe Salehi: But as a content creator at Unbounce especially, I’m working on different campaigns for different teams all the time, from growth to product, to marketing, to sales, and even though we have our own brand style and guidelines for our tone of voice and how clear we wanna speak and all of that, it is more challenging than you would think to be consistent in the way we wanna position our products and the way we wanna position our brand. That’s when I came across Acrolinx. So Acrolinx is a content governance platform. They just want to make sure that you have clear and consistent content across all of your customer touchpoints. It is enterprise level, which does limit the amount of people who can work with the product and it is a bit more on the pricey side. You can cover ad copy, content libraries, product documentation, and basically you can also use this product for different teams. If you are the content creator and different teams are coming to you and being like, can you make sure this is brand aligned and we’re meeting our tone of voice recommendations, you can just be like, oh, this platform actually has our style guide in it, and it gives you opportunities to optimize based on that. So you can think of it as a Grammarly for style guides is a very simple way of putting it. And the way that it works is pretty simple too. You just input any sort of documentation that you have. It could give a Word document, it could be your URL, and it scrapes off the data off of that. And it gives you an idea of the brand guidelines that you wanna go for. And you can also set it based on your target audience. And then once that’s established, you can use it to write material and it can just pop into any different place you’re writing content and be like, oh, this is actually not brand aligned right now. And what I really loved about it also is that it’s not just talking about clarity or tone of voice. It’s also talking about how scannable is what you’re writing and also how inclusive is what you’re writing. So another interesting experience I had is that I inputted random piece of text in the platform, and one of the feedbacks I got is that this piece of text is unnecessarily gendered. In my entire time as a content marketer, I’ve never seen that show up in any sort of app or AI tool and the idea of an ethical writing tool or like a feminist writing tool. I was like, that is my dream. Let’s go. Super excited by that, which brings me to my rating. I would give it pretty close to a three out of three bouncing elephants. Really loved it and really loved the fact that you get to work within a content dashboard like the content freak inside of me was loving that and the plugin is great too.

[00:22:38] Pete Housley: Okay, my turn. I sat down with our Director of Revenue Ops a week or so ago and asked her what she thought the next bastion of AI powered tools or marketing automation would be for Unbounce. She unequivocally came back and said, lead scoring. So with that in mind, I started poking around and stumbled across a product called MadKudu, the AI powered lead scoring platform, which takes in your first party data. And it also references a number of third party data tools. Call them sales enrichment tools, and then uses AI to build a scoring model based on which characteristics are most closely associated with revenue for the use cases. It works on your inbound marketing efforts. It works on your product-led growth. It works on account-based marketing, and it’s literally amazing for marketing leaders, marketing operations, or sales. So it ticks off a number of boxes. It was a little expensive at, you know, order of magnitude, about $2,000 a month, jumping up to about $3,500 a month for the PRO package. So I tracked down an AE. His name was Hayden. Hayden. If you’re listening and you want a job, track me down. You were absolutely amazing. And at Francis, co-founder of MadKudu, I think you should give this guy Hayden, a big fat raise. He had studied my business and he knew that I have entry-level monthly plans and more advanced and enterprise level. He also knew that we had new trial starts that convert to paying customers. So he then explained what the hooks of this tool does is it takes all of your customer data and it plots out everyone in terms of their customer lifecycle, their revenue, their weeks of engagement. But then it looks at industry and characteristics. So it scores everyone in your database, it then can help companies identify who their ICP is. That is your ideal customer profile, and it can not only help you with your upgrades on which clients have the most potential to be best clients, but it then scores all your leads against the first party results that you actually have. So this to me is something that I’m so excited about. It also hooks into your big data system. So for example, we have a CDP. We talked about CDPs in a prior episode, but here we use Segment. And then of course we use Salesforce for our CRM and our sales motion. And this tool hooks into both of those and literally in less than 10 minutes, we would have very, very shaped data. So I am giving three bouncing elephants to MadKudu, and a job offer to Hayden.

Okay, so the next tool is called Optimove, and this is a data marketing automation platform. This one is almost like an AI powered CDP. So essentially what it does is it takes in your customer data from all your channels and journeys, call that an event tracker. It’s very similar to what our own CDP would do. It would have all the information, but then what it does, it uses that data to predict future behavior and it then has ad serving capabilities. So for example, it builds insights on the prospect or the marketing journey. Did they come through my web? Did they come through the email? What was the message that I served them? What is their preference for receiving messages? It learns all of the touchpoints that a consumer is exposed to and it understands what is resonating and what is not. And they call that Optibot. How perfect for an AI generated insights tool. So, what the tool can do, and the platform, is give you real time insights. So imagine you’re A/B testing and it starts saying, test B isn’t really working so well. Should I turn that off? Or, this campaign hasn’t converted in a while. Should I change the CTA or turn that off? So the idea of combining a CDP with the marketing go forward strategies and tactics and implementation is super interesting to me. So I’m gonna give Optimove two and a half bouncing elephants, and it’s not that it wouldn’t be a three, but I do see a number of products in the direct competitive space here. Banafshe, do you wanna give it another round? 

[00:28:26] Banafshe Salehi: Yeah, let’s do it. So let’s talk about SEO. For some writers, it is the bane of our existence, but there’s other writers who love it, who love working within that structure, who love seeing that tangible results that you get once you optimize your article for SEO, and for me, I definitely fall somewhere towards the middle. So I would love to have just like a ready-made SEO guide to go at all times. So that’s when I came across Surfer SEO, which is essentially an SEO focused content intelligence platform. It is, I think, a great tool for SEO in general, not just AI, but as a tool in itself. So I went ahead and I got the most basic plan which sat at around $70 USD, which is not too bad based on the feedback that I got from it. So how it works is that you get into this tool and there’s like a beautiful dashboard that’s a content and SEO dashboard. And it’s really simple. It has two features. It’s keyword research and content editor, and they are pretty interlinked. All you have to do is enter a keyword and you’ll see amazing results. So for me, I picked marketing AI or AI marketing, and I got over 55 clusters of different kinds of SEO optimized phrases that I could use. So it was covering anything from social media to the best tools for AI copywriting, and it was all interconnected under AI marketing. So the structure of the clusters was amazing already, and the volume of the search you could pick from was insane. It was from a hundred plus to a million plus, that is like the amount of searches that it could cover. Once you have those recommendations, you could literally just click on those clusters and the content editor can give you headings, title suggestions, paragraphs you could write. Even questions you can answer in your article or even images you could use. So it was a very interesting way of connecting the two. And I think for me that was always the blocker. Okay, I have all of this SEO information, how do I translate it in a seamless way into my content? And this product really seamlessly answered that question for me. I really, really loved working with it and I’m so pumped by it that I’m already gonna give it three out of three elephants. I love this one. It was my favorite for sure. 

[00:30:54] Pete Housley: Banafshe, thank you for your SEO savvy as a performance marketer. When any of my content team come back with that thoughtful an approach to SEO, it’s music to my ears. And I’m not sure what our listening audience, what their mix of direct versus paid traffic is, but our organic and direct traffic at Unbounce is about 65%. And with that in mind, then the role of content marketing is fundamental to our marketing mix and to gaining new customers efficiently. And don’t forget, we have not built our SEO over the last 13 years around AI marketing. So when someone like Banafshe comes along and uses new keywords like AI marketing to develop new content, and I’m assuming you never would’ve got that fast on your own, Banafshe. So that to me is very, very powerful, especially when there’s a new category out there called AI marketing that we actually want to anchor ourselves to. That was a really good one. Saba, what you got? 

[00:32:14] Saba El-Hilo: So another tool I took a look at is Brand24. It’s an AI social listening tool. So you input your brand or company name or hashtags and it populates a dashboard for you that listens on mentions or any other social content out there that’s relevant to whatever you put in. So I actually put in Unbounce and put together the dashboard. It put it together for me within like minutes. So I was actually really impressed by how quickly it was able to index and populate all of that data, and it was getting updated in real time. So pretty impressive tech there. The AI part of the implementation is in the analytics and metrics. So for example, they have something called a sentiment analysis, which is not a really new concept. It’s been around for years. It actually wasn’t very accurate, and it’s a really hard problem to solve because especially when you’re just looking at a hashtag, right? Like someone could write something negative that’s not related to your brand at all, and then add a hashtag at the end. The tool identifies that as negative, but given that limitation and accuracy, I give this tool two and a half bouncing elephants. But in terms of pricing, it’s actually very, very affordable. So most popular plan is at $249 a month. So if you’re a brand that wants to have a really good handle on what other people out there are talking about your brand or mentioning it about it. It is pretty good for that. 

[00:33:39] Banafshe Salehi: It’s really interesting Pete and Saba, because that is how I started my career actually. So around like a decade ago or seven or eight years ago, I was very interested in content marketing and copywriting, but the closest, most adjacent thing was social media at the time. So I spent many hours a day going through DMs, switching from platform to platform. And I can tell you this tool would’ve been extremely helpful at that time. 

[00:34:04] Pete Housley: And that’s what we’re talking about. These AI tools are time saving to free you up for the other stuff. So when there’s a mechanical task, or a repetitive task like you just talked to Banafshe. This is amazing. Like literally Saba said, you know, you do your inputs and the info is at your fingertips and now you can act strategically and proactively without having to do that repetitive task. So that was a great point. Alright, bring us home, Banafshe with our last tool of the day. 

[00:34:39] Banafshe Salehi: All right, let’s close it out with a topic that I personally am kind of conflicted about. So, competitive intelligence or a competitive analysis is something that any company has to do, and if you work within an agency specifically, that’s something that I was very all deep in. I’m not a spreadsheet girl and I was spending full on days and weeks researching different brands and competitors and putting together spreadsheets, color coded, to the most minute detail about each brand. And it was a little bit of a time killer for me. So when I was looking around for tools that would cover things like competitive intelligence, I came across Crayon. So Crayon is an AI powered competitive intelligence platform, which I think is the first time I’ve personally heard of such a tool. So I think they’re really tapping into a new space in the market that really uses advanced AI to automatically collect information about your competitors. That could be like product launches they’re having, customer reviews, and even changes in leadership. So it is using AI to basically track all of your competitors. So that is a full-time job on its own being covered by this platform, and it has a lot of cool features within it too, you get to build whole battle cards with the information that the tool is giving you, and it automatically updates you on anything that’s going on within your competitor’s world. So it has this tool called Compete Hub, which is a real time live feed, a dynamic feed that is showing literally every action your competitors are taking. And once you get those insights from this platform, you’re able to like share it very easily through email, Slack, or export it to CSV for deeper analysis and reporting. In terms of pricing, it is custom, so you have to be reaching out for an inquiry. I would give it two and a half bouncing elephants only because I’m not in the weeds when it comes to competitive analysis as much, so I wouldn’t personally invest in it on that level. But if that is a main task that you are up to, I think it’s a great investment. 

[00:36:52] Pete Housley: Well, Banafshe, Marketing 101. Fundamental table stakes are know your competitors, and we as marketers need to know every move they make on pricing and features and competitiveness. Otherwise, how do we defend ourselves? We obviously keep very, very detailed records about our competitors and that is run by our product marketing team here at Unbounce, and I’m not sure how often they update it, whether it’s quarterly, but it sounds like in this case we can do it in real time. So as we wind down today, and I try to think about the episode during the episode, our theme today has been specialized AI tools, and I do believe that’s where we are going. I am going to take it upon myself to see what a specialized tool can do for lead qualification, and I look forward to going on that new AI journey to see if we can drive superior sales results and lead conversions. Saba, what is your takeaway on today’s episode? 

[00:38:10] Saba El-Hilo: The curiosity is still there on a lot of the limitations behind, you know, these models. And what I’m really curious about is, as we use these products and like demo them as a first pass, really, really exciting and interesting, right? Like I think for me the question is still about the harder use cases and as we integrate closer and like bring harder problems to these products and tools, are they still gonna be useful? So let’s throw some really hard things at these tools and see what happens. 

[00:38:41] Pete Housley: We could easily rebadge this entire series and call it Curious AI. Absolutely. I think that curiosity should be at the mind of all marketers and good business people, and I really appreciate you reminding us of that curiosity. How about you, Banafshe, what’s your takeaway today?

[00:39:02] Banafshe Salehi: Yeah, I think it’s really interesting because as we were talking about in the beginning of the episode, I kind of reached the end of my rope when it came to more generalized AI things like ChatGPT, and it was a little bit concerning that quality was kind of falling through the cracks, and no one was seemingly caring about that. And I think the writer’s strike was also another example of that. So, I had this slight moment of being a bit more hopeless towards the creative career paths. But I think now that I’ve played around with more specialized AI tools, I think there is a lot of value to having a person who is specialized to use those specialized tools. They are not that easy to pick up. They need investment, they need time put into them, and I think they open up a lot of avenues for content creators like myself. So I think Pete, we should change the name of the episode from Try AI to Try Specialized AI. That’s, I think, the real name change that needs to happen here.

[00:40:00] Pete Housley: Good conclusion. Alright, both. I have to tell you that I am feeling energized. I really loved the intellectual stimulation here and the banter and the thoughtful contributions that both of you had. And with that in mind, let’s call that a wrap. That was Unprompted, a podcast about AI marketing and you.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is a webinar landing page?
2. Why is a landing page important in a webinar?
3. How to create a webinar landing page
4. What can a webinar landing page do for your business?
5. Why a webinar landing page is a no-brainer
6. Webinar landing page best practices
7. Examples of webinar landing pages
8. How to set up your webinar landing page with Unbounce

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Valerio Puggioni

Valerio is a SaaS copywriter and content creator with a passion for tech and combat sports. Armed with a PhD.c in North Korean propaganda studies, he lives in Bangkok with his partner and his dog, who he tortures all day long with his tone-deaf singing. He wiles away his days playing story-driven open-world games, and reading comics and popular physics books. You can read more about him @ Copygun.com.

» More blog posts by Valerio Puggioni

Banafshe Salehi

Banafshe is a writer and creator who loves long walks on the beach (kidding?). When she’s not selling you on her puns or her pop-culture analogies, she can be found at the busiest intersection in her city with her headphones. Which are totally not falling apart.

» More blog posts by Banafshe Salehi

It’s 2023. The ordinary ways we do things have been disrupted left and right, up and down after that little known thang called COVID-19. Circumstances have forced many businesses to shift their brick-and-mortar operations and real-world activities online. Even though we’re “back”, it’s safe to say that circumstances forced many businesses to shift their brick-and-mortar operations and real-world activities online, and create a whole new hybrid world.

So it’s fair for a marketer to ask:

“Are webinars still in? Or did we get webinar-burnout during COVID and still haven’t recovered?“

The short answer is, yes they’re still in. And now’s still a great time for ‘em.

Marketing departments slashed their networking budgets, with some not bouncing back from that and establishing this as the new norm. While gatherings like conferences and workshops are definitely back in a big way, it’s true that for lots of companies and organizations, they still won’t be in the cards for quite a while…or ever.

While all of us were in lockdown in 2020, with little to do but binge-watch crime documentaries on Netflix, webinars were blowing up like never before. It was a webinar renaissance.

But the thing is, the webinar renaissance is far from over—and it’s leveling up as we speak.

Look at what holding online events can do for your business and how you can create webinar landing pages that turn visitors into registrants.

What is a webinar landing page?

A webinar landing page is a dedicated web page designed to promote and provide essential information about an upcoming webinar event. It’s a platform where you can share details and encourage potential attendees to register for your event. Think of it as a digital poster of your event. (Ain’t no one got time to glue those things around town anymore.)

On a webinar signup landing page, you’ll find key information such as the date and time of the webinar, the topics that’ll be covered, the speakers or presenters, and any other logistical details like how to join the event. It’s essentially the digital hub where all the important information about the webinar exists.

Webinar landing pages have one main goal: to convert visitors into registered participants. To achieve this, webinar landing pages typically include a prominent call-to-action (CTA) button that encourages visitors to sign up or register for the webinar. This CTA is strategically placed to make it easy for interested individuals to take the next step and secure their spot in the event.

In addition to practical information and registration prompts, a well-designed webinar landing page can also incorporate visuals like images or videos related to the webinar’s topic or the speakers/presenters. Your webinar landing page’s content should be concise and engaging, providing a clear understanding of what attendees can expect from your webinar.

TLDR; a webinar landing page is a vital tool for marketing and promoting your online seminars. It’s a central hub of information to inform and entice your potential attendees to register for the event. 

If you’re about to create a webinar landing page, congrats! You’re halfway to a successful and well-attended webinar. 

Why is a landing page important in a webinar?

A webinar landing page helps you consolidate your marketing efforts for your webinar. Rather than sending visitors to your already-filled-with-information website or your never-ending social media feed, a landing page specific to your webinar has tonsa’ benefits. 

Focused information: A landing page provides a dedicated space to convey all essential details about your webinar. This includes the date, time, agenda, speakers, and registration process. By presenting this information in one place, you can make sure that your potential attendees have clear, concise, and easily accessible information that encourages them to secure a spot. 

Conversion optimization: Landing pages are specifically designed for one primary purpose: conversion.  This singular focus on conversion optimization significantly increases the likelihood of turning your interested visitors into registered participants. And who doesn’t want that?

Lead generation: Webinars are often used as a lead gen tool. Rather than getting your leads from scattered places, a webinar landing page allows you to capture valuable attendee information, such as names and email addresses, during the registration process (in a non-creepy way that’s respectful of your visitors’ data, of course.) This data becomes a valuable resource for your follow-up communication, nurturing leads, and building lasting relationships with potential customers. Rather than having a one-hit-webinar, you increase the chances for further audience engagement down the line. 

How to create a webinar landing page 

If you’ve ever created a landing page, chances are creating a webinar landing page won’t be too different (and if you haven’t, well, we’ve got the detailed guide on how to create a landing page.)

Let’s break it down, and get that webinar on the road already.

Get clear on your webinar landing page’s goal

Knowing your campaign goal for any landing page is key. In this case, you should pretty much just have one goal in mind: to get those virtual seats filled, baby.

Everything about your webinar landing page should be making it easy for your visitors to sign up for your webinar, plain and simple. You can of course have secondary goals you’re goin’ for (getting folks to sign up for your newsletter could be a good one, you could even kill two birds with one stone), but make sure they’re not overshadowing your main objective of filling up your webinar attendance to the brim.

Write convincing, informative copy 

Now that you know what you gotta do, it’s time to find the words to convince folks to attend your webinar series. Keep your main goal in mind, keep it simple, and keep it informative. 

Remember that folks need to attend the webinar to learn about more details. Here are a few things you need to cover on your webinar landing page, while keepin’ it brief.

Content outline

For your webinar landing page, keep it short with an outline for introduction into what content you will be getting into for your webinar. Not too much, not too little. 

Panel information

Webinars are hosted by real people. That’s something that really sets ‘em apart from, say, a blog (even though we think blogs are awesome too…) So it’s important to properly introduced the parties involved (hosts, moderators, guests, etc.). What are they bringing to the table, and how are they making this webinar awesome? Again, keep it brief. 

Event information

When is your webinar? How long is it? What do people need to do to register? These are key pieces of information you need to cover on your webinar landing page, so your visitors can gauge their availability. You don’t want reserved seats goin’ to waste.

Create your webinar landing page’s CTA

As we talked about, crafting your CTA for any landing page is one of the important steps. When it comes to webinar landing pages, your CTA should be straightforward and persuasive, leading visitors to register for your event. Anything from “Register now” to “Secure your spot” is fair game. 

Create your landing page’s visual experience

Even though copy is more important in convincing folks to take action on landing pages, the visual element can’t go ignored. Make sure your webinar landing page draws inspiration from your webinar’s topic and is also a solid representation of your brand. As you’re leading visitors from one branded experience (webinar landing page) to the next (the webinar itself) it’s important to set yourself (and your event) up for success by being consistent. 

What can a webinar do for my business?

It’s no secret that savvy marketers and businesses love running webinars. After all, they can be an easy way to achieve multiple goals:

• Webinars can help fill your funnel and generate more leads—and fast. If you’re a techy, you can automate this process too, saving you even more time. (For a concrete example, see how Thinkific took advantage of the Unbounce integration with ActiveCampaign to secure thousands of leads on autopilot for an online summit.)
• Webinars give you a platform to educate your customers, build stronger bonds, and boost product engagement. An easy way to do this is to demo your product live and use it to execute the key points you’ve covered. 
• By educating your customers, you’re establishing authority and brand expertise. According to 99firms, “92% of attendees expect a live Q&A session at the end of the webinar.” That’s right: they expect it. They actually want you to teach them something. To demo something that might improve their lives. To sell them something that might give them value. They’re inviting you to build closer relationships and engage with them.
• You’re networking and making yourself look smart via your guests’ expertise, boosting your own authority. It’s called the Halo effect. When you bring on stellar guests, their best qualities reflect onto you. Plus, your guests’ target audiences get to learn about you. Talk about a quick and easy way to expand your reach.
• Affiliates and potential partners might approach you if they see an opportunity. Finally, offering to run webinars together can be a powerful incentive for partnering up, especially if you can offer the resources, know-how, and network to do it well.

When done right, webinars are an easy way to cover every stage of your funnel. With all that upside, we’re shocked more companies aren’t running online events. (How about a Netflix model? We’d tune in.)

A webinar landing page is a no-brainer

You can be the William Shakespeare of webinars, delivering brilliance, entertainment, and wisdom in one perfect package. Without a half-decent landing page to score some signups, though? Well, you’d be lucky to draw a crowd of crickets.

That’s why promoting your webinars is so important. If you have seats to fill, you’ve got three options: 

1. You can build a stripped-down registration page that’s easy to set up but doesn’t really convince people to convert. Too often, these pages have lengthy forms with so many unnecessary fields, you might as well be filling out a tax form. You also have no ability to A/B test them. 
2. You can get your web devs and designers together to create something with tons of visual appeal—but this option takes a lot of time and money that you may not have right now. (Totally understandable if you’re trying to get up and running quickly.)
3. You can use landing pages to help you avoid both these problems. Webinar landing pages can be a better option when it comes to running time-sensitive campaigns because you can literally set one up and get running in minutes. And if you’re a believer in wowing your target audience with beautiful design, creating one is still very easy, because you can use templates that have already been tested in the wild.

Webinar landing page best practices

When it comes to landing pages for webinar registration, you could fill an encyclopedia with all the best practices out there. To get you started sooner, let’s stick to the few established and actionable practices that’ll reap some of the greatest rewards.

1. Before you can create a compelling landing page, you need a strong topic.

Choose a topic that grabs your audience’s attention. Ideally, it should be contemporary, relevant to the problems they face, and very actionable. Once the webinar is over, your audience should be left energized, since the next steps will be crystal clear. 

2. Invite a guest to connect with new audiences.

Sure, you can rely on your star power to draw a small crowd. But that’s not getting the best bang for your buck. What’s an event if you show up all by your lonesome? 

One amazing way to multiply your reach is by leveraging your guests’ audiences. Keep in mind, these people aren’t a cold audience either. They’re already warmed up because you’re working with someone they already trust. That means they’re more likely to buy from you. 

Plus, if your guest is selling a complementary product or service, this could lead to some profitable partnerships, with many cross-selling opportunities to follow. (Imagine, for instance, an ice cream vendor teaming up with a company that makes nothing but ice cream cones. Brilliant.)

3. Get the most out of your webinar efforts by following up with your registrants. 

Send them promotional material before and after they’ve signed up. With their permission, you can continue to nurture them by sending valuable (as in relevant and helpful) content once in a while—and keep strengthening your brand authority while you’re at it.

4. Don’t treat your webinar like a one-and-done.

What if—for some oddball reason—you host your event just once? Does that mean you can only send traffic to it for a single campaign?

Not a chance. Simply continue to run cold traffic to your webinar landing page, where your target audience will sign up for the recording with enthusiasm. Though they can’t ask questions, they also don’t have to wait for a specific time to watch. (Below, we’ll show you a super-cool example of a signup landing page for a recorded webinar.)

5. Repurpose your webinars for other channels. 

If you know a good video editor, ask them to slice and dice your webinars into little clips that feature your best highlights. Share these on social media, embed them in your blog, and use them in your ads to continue to drive traffic.

Inspiring examples of webinar landing pages

In this last section, we look at several landing pages that have performed particularly well by following the principles of conversion-centered design.

Built using Unbounce, these examples are some of the best webinar landing pages we’ve seen across many industries. (We’ve kept conversion rates private, but all the pages here convert between 9% and 50%.)

1. Tailwind

Tailwind’s webinar signup page has got to be one of our favorites. Talk about getting so many things right. 

The visuals immediately grab your attention, along with the clear copy and smart use of social proof. But it’s also an excellent example of the congruence principle of conversion design, since all the elements on the page are in alignment, driving toward a single goal. 

Let’s start with the attention ratio, which is the number of things your visitor can do on a page versus the number of things you want them to do. The attention ratio here is a beautiful 1:1. Notice that there isn’t a menu or other external links, and all the CTA buttons all serve the same conversion goal.

Did we forget to mention there’s no intimidating contact form in sight? You’ve got to click on the button to pull it up. The contact form asks for your “best” email. (We wouldn’t blame you if you thought this is a tad simplistic, but it does tickle our fancy.)

Finally, the drop-down menu on the form segments subscribers based on their specified needs. Talk about keeping things simple yet elegant.

Tailwind also does a fantastic job of presenting their guest, a proven and well-known authority in her space. In fact, we can’t tell what Tailwind is about simply by looking at the landing page. That’s because the focus is entirely on what the target audience is going to get. Not a word about the business just yet. (No hard sell.)

And that’s how it’s done.

2. Wix

We all know that Wix knows what they’re doin’ when it comes to websites, but it turns out they got some landing page game too. Wix’s SEO Hub is where Wix leans into SEO strategies and shares them with a more specialized audience. 

What caught our eye about this particular webinar landing page is the pure simplicity of it. Wix provides you with the exact right amount of information here, with no gimmicks involved. Sometimes a short summary of what will be covered in the webinar, along with the date and time, the hosts’ bios, and a solid CTA is all you really need.

Though Wix keeps it simple with this webinar landing page, we liked the amount of space that’s dedicated to the hosts’ bios. It adds a feeling of credibility which can help you make the call to join the webinar if you’re feelin’ unsure.

3. Bandzoogle

This straightforward landing page from Bandzoogle is a fantastic example of clarity. The headline uses a proven copywriting formula: “How to do X without Y”. It works because it promises to teach you something while removing a traditional barrier. 

You have to love the body copy too. It’s simple, straight to the point, and opens by hitting on a major pain point shared by many musicians: the frustrations of booking a tour. 

The bullet points below are also worth closer scrutiny. Each one is 100% focused on the target audience and doesn’t beat around the bush, with zero fluff. It’s clear no copywriter is showing off here.

Then there’s email capture text. It informs the target audience that the webinar has already been recorded. Sure, this statement might catch them off-guard, but we’ll bet you the target audience appreciates the honesty and will trust you more in the longer term. (Besides, the information is still relevant.)

And their contact form? You can’t even call it that. It’s only asking for your email. And note how they weave their privacy policy into the fine print underneath. Brilliant.

4. Libris

If you thought short-form landing pages couldn’t do it all, one quick look at Libris’ landing page will change your mind. Libris understands that motion, more than anything, is the very first thing that captures the attention of the human eye. 

But the footage isn’t showing any random attention-grabbing event. It’s a clip of two football teams walking out into the field. (Remember “sports”? That thing we used to do outside?) The focus though rests on the attendees holding up their cameras and phones to capture the event, not the actual event itself.

The powerful copy reinforces this concept throughout the landing page. What makes it effective is its focus on “you” from beginning to end, keeping it simple and hyper-relevant to the target audience. 

But our favorite part about this? It’s the chatbot in the bottom corner that pops the question, “You hungry?” How could you not be tempted to answer that? (And, yes, we are hungry.)

5. Vyond

This landing page for a weekly webinar scores leads and signups for Vyond on autopilot. (Sweet.) The headline is pretty clear, and the primary brand color is immediately recognizable by the target audience. 

The 44-second video builds trust by introducing a human face, Vyond’s customer success training manager. But it quickly moves past the intro to display some striking visuals that showcase the Vyond app, as well as its ease of use. 

The main CTA is “Register for the Webinar”, but there are two anchor CTAs, one sitting on each side, which both ensure that the reader stays on-page.

It’s good, but as with any landing page, a healthy mindset is to “Always Be Testing.” With #ABT in mind, you could try switching up a couple of things here: we’d recommend A/B testing against a shorter-form variant, and using Smart Traffic to see how the page performs with fewer fields. 

6. Hubspot

There’s a lot we love about Hubspot, and this webinar series landing page just made us love ‘em more. Hubspot’s landing page for their advertising webinar series gets lots of brownie points for using multimedia elements. With engaging video content playing, this webinar landing page foreshadows some quality content comin’ your way in this webinar series.
Hubspot’s webinar landing page is a great example of leaning into the visual experience of your page. While copy is important—and this landing page provides all the necessary information in bite-sized copy—a creatively designed landing page can take you a long way.

7. Unbounce 

We hate to brag, but this last one ticks all the boxes. Yes, it’s a webinar registration landing page by Unbounce, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be impartial.

Just look at that landing page design. This page is oozing confidence. It’s simply here to get you ready to consume a whole jumbo 14-pack of knowledge bombs in a single webinar.

Then comes the promise of what you’ll gain by catching the webinar. How to navigate the Unbounce platform? How to choose a template and create your first page? Sign us up already. These tidbits help showcase the amount of value folks are gonna get from this webinar.

This Unbounce webinar landing page keeps it quick and gives you the bare-bones information you need, plus access to previous recordings to the webinar if you can’t make it to one live. How nice.

Using Unbounce to set up your webinar landing page

Do you remember the first landing pages you tried to build by hand? We wouldn’t blame you if you still wake up in cold sweats. If only you knew about Unbounce then. Using it to get your webinar landing page up and running is easy. 

To get started, just pick a landing page template from the hundreds available. (Be sure to check out the advanced filters.) Tweak it to match your email or ad campaign if you’ve already got one running, or build the whole thing from the ground up. 

Then, drag and drop and adjust to your heart’s content, all without having to write a single line of code. (But if you really need to scratch your coding itch, you always have the option of inserting custom code to fit your needs.) 

Once you’re happy with your template, you can duplicate it to set up a variant or two to automatically optimize it with Smart Traffic. 

And you’re all set. (Really. No more nightmares.)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is a SaaS landing page?
2. What are the essential elements of a SaaS landing page?
3. SaaS marketers are converting less
4. What is the average SaaS landing page conversion rate?
5. SaaS landing page trends
6. Five examples of modern SaaS landing pages

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Luke Bailey

Luke writes words and stuff for Unbounce. While he likes to use a little alliteration in his work, he’s also aware that readers aren’t always in awe of his atrocious adjective additives. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeBailey.

» More blog posts by Luke Bailey

Paul Park

Paul is a writer on Unbounce’s content team who lives and breathes storytelling (it’s like oxygen but with better plotlines!). Ask him what he’s up to at any given moment and you’ll get answers ranging from folding paper dragons (y’know, origami) to catching up on the latest cool tech, and finding other ways to channel his inner geek.

» More blog posts by Paul Park

Just take a look at a landing page we used to advertise our trial of Unbounce back in our early years, compared to a landing page we’re using today…

And it’s not just us—you can do the same comparison with any SaaS brand that’s been in the landing page game for a long time. The design, copy, branding, tactics…they’ve all gotten better, like little Pokémon evolving into—uh—bigger, better-looking Pokémon. (OK, you got us. We’ve never actually played Pokémon.)

But while SaaS landing pages have come a long way, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. We recently went through and manually reviewed 200 real-world SaaS campaigns to see if we could learn what works (and what doesn’t).

Keep reading to see what we learned in the process, some examples you can use for inspiration, and some tips on how to optimize your SaaS landing pages like a pro this year.

But before we jump into the insights, let’s cover some of the basics first.

What is a SaaS landing page?

A good landing page is a page that’s laser-focused on accomplishing just one goal, whether that goal is to sell “make your own bubble tea” kits or to gather leads for your eBook about why bubble tea is the greatest drink of all time. (Are you thirsty all of a sudden? Us too.)

So it follows that the best SaaS landing pages should be focused on a specific SaaS-related goal, such as selling subscriptions or getting people to sign up for your webinar. And part of the magic behind why a consumer-facing or B2B SaaS landing page can be so great for your bottom line is because it’s designed to maximize conversion. 

Sure, your homepage is great for introducing visitors to your organization and providing a general overview of what you offer, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of actually getting visitors to convert, a SaaS landing page is your most effective tool.

And it’s pretty versatile, too. You can start building hype for your upcoming service with a SaaS pre-launch landing page, or create a SaaS product landing page to show off your product in its best light. You can also use a SaaS pricing landing page to help convince customers that it’s totally worth it for them to fork over their hard-earned dollars because of the value they’re getting in return.

What are the essential elements of a SaaS landing page?

Here’s your recipe for creating the best SaaS landing pages. By adding these ingredients you’ll be able to whip up high-converting SaaS landing pages that’ll supercharge your conversions.

Unique selling proposition (USP)

Before you do anything else, start by answering this question: What is it about your service or product that makes it stand out from the competition? The answer to that question is your unique selling proposition, and by identifying that you’ll be able to set a direction and focus for your SaaS landing page. Basically, everything on the landing page should, in some way, be connected to the USP.

Hero section

This is the top of the page (“above the fold”) that contains your headline and hero image. A good headline will grab attention while also clearly identifying the purpose of the page, so visitors immediately understand where they’ve arrived. It also shouldn’t be too long. (Does this sound a bit, um, challenging? Thankfully we have a solution for that.)

The hero image is the first visual element that visitors see when they arrive on the page. You know that old saying, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”? Don’t waste your chance—by including a strong hero image, you’ll set a good tone for the rest of the page. (We’ve got a lot more to say about hero images here.)

Page design

Speaking of good impressions, the overall design of the page can say a lot about your product and brand even before the visitor reads a single word. By keeping the design clean, uncluttered, and focused on the objective of the page (sign-ups, lead gen, etc.) you’ll be better able to nudge visitors towards taking action.

Looking for great designs that you can copy—er, get inspiration from? You can find plenty of tried and tested (and free) SaaS landing page templates right here. And whether you’re a seasoned web designer or a complete newbie, we’ve got the SaaS landing page builder that’s perfect for you.

Features and benefits

A feature is a detail about a product, like “this car has heated seats.” The benefit explains why you want that feature, such as “so you can keep your buns toasty warm even during frigid temperatures.”

Use short, punchy copy (and images, if it makes sense to do so) to describe your product’s features and benefits. Remember, the point here is to clearly explain why visitors will want what you’re selling.

Comparison tables are a great way to lay out features and benefits in a way that’s easy for readers to scan through, and maybe even show how your product stacks up against (i.e. dominates) your competitors.

Social proof

Remember that time you were chatting with a friend or coworker and they were raving about the new restaurant that you just have to try out because it was so awesome? You probably felt tempted to pull out your phone and make a reservation, right then and there.

Social proof on your SaaS landing page works in a similar way. By including a recommendation or testimonial from a reputable source, you signal to your visitors that your product is, indeed, as amazing as it seems to be.

Demo video or animation

If your product or service is a bit more complicated or difficult to explain, consider inserting a video or animation. This way you can show your visitors how great it is, rather than just tell them, and help them understand how it will fit into their lives (and budget). 

Call to action (CTA)

There’s an old sales maxim that says, “The most important part of selling is asking for the sale.” (Otherwise you’d just stand there in an awkward silence?) The CTA serves this vital purpose by nudging the visitor towards taking the action you want them to take. (If you want to dig deeper into CTAs, we’ve got you.)

It’s perfectly fine to include multiple CTAs on a single landing page, as long as they all point towards the same destination. Don’t include multiple CTAs that link to different pages or you might find your conversion rate dropping like the vase your cat just knocked over.

Forms

If your landing page’s purpose is to collect leads, you’ll need to include a form. (No kidding, Captain Obvious.) To reduce friction and increase the likelihood that visitors will actually hand over their details, keep the form as short and easy to fill out as possible. 

Mobile optimization

The majority of people who visit your landing page will probably be doing it through their phones, so it’s essential that the page is optimized for smaller screens. If you force visitors to view a desktop-formatted landing page on their smartphone, your bounce rates will skyrocket. 

The big problem: SaaS marketers are converting less

For the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, our team of data scientists (yep, they have lab coats) have been using machine learning and a rigorous methodology to study more than 44,000 landing pages and 33 million conversions.

One of the perks of working here is that we got an early look at some of their research. And we don’t want to sound overly dramatic here, but one data point made us raise our eyebrows two-and-a-half inches higher than usual…

On average, SaaS landing pages convert 10.46% lower than the overall conversion rate baseline.

This means that SaaS pages are less likely to convert than the majority of other industry landing pages covered in their in-depth research—including ecommerce and education pages. (“Whaaaat?!”)

Now there could be a few reasons for this. For starters, software can be pretty intangible and boring-looking, making it harder to market. (Although, believe it or not, we have seen some super sexy bookkeeping platforms.) It can also be complicated to explain in simple terms what your software does, who it’s for, and what all the different features do that make it special. Plus, most SaaS businesses are targeting a very specific niche, in an industry that’s constantly changing—and there’s typically a longer sales cycle, too.

All of these challenges add up to make SaaS landing pages a particularly tough nut to crack. And Talia Wolf, the Founder and Chief Optimizer at GetUplift, says they often cause marketers to miss out on what’s really driving conversions on their landing pages…

Most SaaS marketers know what a great landing page looks like. They get the concept of focusing on a singular offer and leading visitors down the funnel. But there are other parts they miss out on ALL THE TIME. Strategy, emotion, persuasion, and most importantly—creating a customer-centric landing page. If you don’t go back and optimize for these things, then your page will never get the results you really need for your business.

– Talia Wolf

Yikes! It might be a bias we have here at Unbounce, but we believe you should never “set it and forget it” with your landing pages. (Though, we totally get how easy that is to do with all you’ve got going on.) To score those above-average conversion rates, you need to optimize each page before and after you hit publish.

And by optimize, we don’t just mean tweaking your button colors. To shape up your landing pages the way the experts do, you’ve gotta make smart decisions based on data and research. Track who is visiting your page and understand what they’re looking for. Use tools to discover whether your copy is actually resonating. And record what happens after someone clicks your CTA.

Because it’s only if you keep iterating and optimizing over time that you’ll be able to uncover the true conversion potential of your landing pages.

What is the average SaaS landing page conversion rate?

This is an important question to ask because it’s the key to knowing if all of your optimization hard work is paying off, or if there’s more you need to do.

By digging through the Conversion Benchmark Report, you can see that SaaS landing pages have an average conversion rate of 9.5% and a median conversion rate of 3.0%. (Not sure about the difference between average and median values? This should clear it up.)

If your conversion rates are falling below the figures above, then it’s time to get to work. 

SaaS landing page trends (a qualitative look)

We spent a couple of weeks studying 200 randomly-selected SaaS landing pages built in Unbounce. The goal was to look for qualitative trends and commonalities between the pages, and get a sense of what a high-converting SaaS landing page looks like. 

Our methodology was pretty straightforward. We’d open a SaaS landing page, check it for some of the different elements, then mark it off in a spreadsheet. We went with a smaller sample size (200) that was manageable enough for us to take a self-guided look and satisfy our own curiosity.

Before we dive into the data though, there is one other caveat. While we did our best to keep only the pages that looked, felt, and smelled like SaaS, some of the sampled companies might not sell their software on a purely subscription basis.

Sound cool? Then let’s get to the good stuff…

What types of landing pages are SaaS marketers creating?

The most popular type of SaaS landing page we saw was the “Demo/Consultation Page.” Marketers are using these to get visitors to try a demo of their software or reach out for a free consultation to learn more. No surprises here—it’s that classic “try before you buy” approach that gets leads in the door.

“Sign-Up Pages” were the next-most popular at 24%, which skip the demo and ask visitors to get started right away with either a free trial or paid plan. These work well at the bottom of the funnel—but you’ve gotta make sure you target them properly so only the decision-ready people are clicking onto your landing page. Otherwise, you’ll just end up scaring folks away.Coming in third place were “Lead Magnet Pages” at 21%. These are your webinar registration pages, your ebook download pages, and… well, that’s pretty much it, actually. Seems like those are still the two most popular ways to get top-of-funnel leads into your email database.

How long is the average headline on a SaaS landing page?

Here’s an interesting data point—the average H1 headline we saw on these SaaS landing pages was 44 characters long, which usually comes in at less than eight words. In general, this gives you just enough space to communicate the problem your software is going to solve for visitors. (E.g., “Rescue Customers When They Need Quick Support.”)

And while we know we tend to think the shorter, the better when it comes to headlines, that’s not always the case. As we went through these 200 pages, one thing we noticed was that the shortest headlines were usually just the names of the software or literal descriptions of what they did (e.g., “AI Dialer”). This is a classic mistake that SaaS marketers tend to make—making the landing page all about you and your software, and not enough about the problem you’re solving or the people who need it most. (Further proof? Words like “You” and “Your” only appeared in about 27% of the H1 headlines on the SaaS pages I sampled.)

Curious about what other problems are plaguing SaaS landing pages? CRO expert Talia Wolf has identified three other mistakes marketers make and put together step-by-step instructions on how to solve them in the epic new guide—How to Optimize Your SaaS Landing Pages.

What types of images are SaaS marketers using in their hero section?

When it comes to the images being featured at the top of SaaS landing pages, there were a few surprises. For starters, it seems like most marketers are still choosing to show off their software at the top of the page (40%), rather than a photograph of people (27%) or an illustration (8%). This is despite the fact that many SaaS brands have moved towards using illustrations on their websites in the last couple of years. Seems like marketers are choosing to go literal on their landing pages, instead.

Even more surprising? Almost one in four SaaS landing pages are choosing to use no images at all in their hero section. This isn’t a bad strategy—cutting down on the design elements of your page can help visitors focus on what’s important (like your headline and that big, beautiful CTA) and help your content load faster too.

How many SaaS landing pages use social proof?

Social proof is one of the most valuable things you can have on your landing page. Not only does it build trust with your visitors, it can also help to highlight key software benefits and features that you want prospects to know about.

And yet—only 54% of the SaaS landing pages we sampled featured a testimonial of some kind. (And that number gets even lower if you only count the testimonials that feature photos of the customer and their real, full names.)

But you don’t have to take my word on why you should use social proof—here’s a testimonial (omg, see what we did there?) from Andy Crestodina, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Orbit Media.

When you say it, it’s marketing. When your customer says it, it’s social proof. This is why testimonials are so powerful. The substance is better; it’s an objective, third-party perspective. The style is also better; it’s more authentic, less polished.

– Andy Crestodina

How distraction-free are SaaS landing pages?

Here’s some good news! When it comes to keeping your landing page distraction-free, most SaaS marketers seem to be on board. 91% of the pages we sampled had no top navigation, and 73% of them had only one, singular CTA for visitors to click on. Keeping eyes on the prize—that’s the landing page advantage.

What are the most popular CTA buttons?

Your CTA has to do a lot of heavy lifting. Not only should it inspire action from your landing page visitors, but it should also make it clear exactly what will happen when someone clicks through.

The word cloud above shows which CTA buttons SaaS marketers are using most frequently on their landing pages. “Get Started” and “Get Free Demo” are two of the most popular phrases, with other classics like “Start Your Free Trial” and “Try Now” coming in close behind.

Should you include a form on your landing page?

The majority (72%) of SaaS landing pages we sampled feature a form of some kind for visitors to fill out. This means rather than have visitors click-through to a sign-up flow or some other registration page, marketers are opting to collect lead info right on the landing page itself.

The forms we saw ranged in type and size. The largest had over 10 fields to fill out, including mandatory boxes asking for your “Type of Organization,” “Job Title,” and “Company Website.” (It also had a box at the end asking if you had any “Questions/Comments.” Which, of course you do. But this landing page form probably isn’t the best place to put them.) 

The average number of form fields came in between four and five, with the shortest forms asking you to only fill out one thing: your email address.

Five examples of modern SaaS landing pages

Looking for some inspiration for your next campaign? Here are five SaaS landing page examples, most of which were built in Unbounce, that impressed us with their smart, tailored approaches to copy and design.

The “Try a Free Demo” page

So many SaaS landing pages have headlines that focus on the product. What we love about this example from Mixmax is that the copy makes it about the visitor and the problems they care about most. “De-clutter YOUR email. Prioritize YOUR focus. Automate YOUR day.” These are the benefits of the software, and the Mixmax team has framed them in a customer-centric way that really resonates with visitors.

The “View a Demo” page

If your visitors are too busy to try out an actual demo, a demo video can be the next best thing. On this landing page from Miro, the hero section includes a short, embedded video—less than a minute long—that helps visitors understand how Miro helps teams share and organize ideas.

The page’s design is clean and uncluttered, with plenty of white space to allow visitors’ eyes to focus on the images and the short, effective copy. The page provides a simple, seamless experience—not unlike what it’s like to use Miro itself.

The “Start Your Free Trial” page

When you get to the bottom of the funnel, it’s important to layer on the social proof so visitors are ready to take the plunge into a free trial. This example from Peakon does a great job of showing that they’re the “world’s leading platform for measuring and improving employee engagement” by dropping in some big-name company logos right underneath.

Add in a simple and straightforward form that includes objection-handling microcopy (“Peakon is free to try for 30 days. No credit card required.”) and you can see why this page delivers the goods.

The “Lead Magnet” page

This beautifully-designed lead magnet landing page from Shoelace is like a work of pop art. The on-brand illustrations and animations make downloading the deck seem like a downright fun proposition, and the copy highlights the problem before sliding in the downloadable deck as a solution.

Also, did you notice the “book a demo” secondary CTA in the top nav bar? Although it goes against one of the landing page best practices, this works nicely as a shortcut for more solution-aware visitors who are ready to take action.

The “Animations” page

FigJam is a whiteboarding tool made by Figma. And similar to the Miro example above, its usefulness is best illustrated by seeing how it works. However, this landing page doesn’t require you to click on a video—instead, it features animations that play automatically (and silently, so you don’t get that “AARGH I really hate loud, autoplaying videos!” effect). 

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Get actionable insights, expert advice, and practical tips that can help you create high-converting landing pages, improve your PPC campaigns, and grow your business online.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is a sales page?
2. The difference between sales pages and landing pages
3. Product pages vs sales pages
4. Short sales pages vs long sales pages?
5. How to create a sales page that converts
6. Sales page copywriting and why it matters
7. Sales page examples
8. Use sales pages for your business

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Emily Bauer

Emily is a freelance writer and content marketer from Toronto. She helps tech companies and startups develop awesome content for their blogs, websites, and social media. When she’s not writing or thinking about writing, Emily can be found chilling on her yoga mat, loitering in bookstores, or exploring the city with her super cute (and super spoiled) corgi, Wilbert.

» More blog posts by Emily Bauer

Banafshe Salehi

Banafshe is a writer and creator who loves long walks on the beach (kidding?). When she’s not selling you on her puns or her pop-culture analogies, she can be found at the busiest intersection in her city with her headphones. Which are totally not falling apart.

» More blog posts by Banafshe Salehi

Sales pages are like the powerlifters of landing pages. Or, if team sports are more your thing, they’re the MVPs.

Where most landing pages provide immense value by setting you up to score a sale—perhaps by generating, vetting, or capturing leads—a sales page makes the touchdown itself. (Are we doing this sports metaphor thing right?)

In other words, sales pages have loftier goals than your average product page or landing page.Rather than aiming for downloads, signups, or click-throughs (all of which play a role in finding and nurturing leads), the purpose of sales pages is turning ad clicks directly into paying customers.

Suffice it to say, the pressure is on. Your sales pages need to come through with the win, which means you need to know how to create a high-converting sales page for every campaign.

In this article, we’ll tell you what makes a great sales landing page and show you how to create a sales page that actually converts clicks into customers. Plus, we’ll look at what you can learn from some of our favorite real-world sales page examples.

But first, let’s answer some of the most common questions related to sales pages for online stores and services.

What is a sales page, exactly?

A sales page is a dedicated landing page built to convert ad traffic into customers. You can think of sales pages as the modern sales letter, but more targeted and data-driven.

A good sales page is more than just a convenient place to send click-throughs. It’s the best place to send someone who clicks on a targeted ad, whether you’re running paid ads on Instagram or an email marketing campaign.

It’s not just about convenience; it’s about maximizing your ROI. Every element, from the compelling headline to the persuasive copy and irresistible call-to-action buttons, is honed to guide your visitor down the conversion funnel. 

In this era of data-driven marketing, a good sales page is not just a luxury—it’s a necessity. It allows you to analyze user behavior, track conversions, and fine-tune your strategies for optimal results. It’s the fulcrum upon which your digital marketing efforts pivot, ensuring that your investment in advertising doesn’t go to waste.

So, next time you’re plotting your digital marketing conquest, remember that a well-crafted sales page is your ultimate ally, a place where clicks transform into customers and where your brand story finds its most compelling voice.

Compared to online stores, sales pages convert better in terms of volume and revenue. In fact, landing pages have been shown to convert 2X as many visitors into customers and increase average customer spend 2X. Whoa.

A big reason for this is that online stores have built-in distractions that can pull visitors in multiple directions (things like links to related products, promotions, shipping details, etc.). You use a sales page when you want to maintain momentum and ensure shoppers only have one thing on their mind: making the purchase.

Compared to online stores, sales pages convert better in terms of volume and revenue. In fact, landing pages have been shown to convert 2X as many visitors into customers and increase average customer spend 2X. Whoa.

A big reason for this is that online stores have built-in distractions that can pull visitors in multiple directions (things like links to related products, promotions, shipping details, etc.). You use a sales page to maintain momentum and ensure shoppers only have one thing on their mind: making the purchase.

Landing pages vs. sales pages: is there a difference?

Like every great landing page, a sales page is built around a specific conversion goal. However, when it comes to sales page design, the objective isn’t just any old conversion—it’s getting visitors to actually buy. In order to close the deal, a sales page might be longer than the average landing page, especially for bigger purchases.

A sales page is the virtual showroom where the art of persuasion takes center stage, meticulously designed to orchestrate a specific and crucial conversion goal: getting visitors to make a purchase. It’s not about mere lead generation or casual engagement; it’s about transforming a curious browser into a paying customer. In the realm of sales page design, the objective is clear and unwavering—to seal the deal.

Unlike your run-of-the-mill landing page, which might aim to capture contact information or encourage further exploration, a sales page operates on a different wavelength. It’s the ultimate closer, the grand finale in your digital sales pitch, where the spotlight is firmly on coaxing visitors to open their wallets and make a transaction.

In this pursuit of the sale, a sales page often takes on a distinct characteristic—it can be longer and more comprehensive than your average landing page. 

Why? Because when it comes to significant purchases, prospective customers crave information, reassurance, and clarity. They want to know what they’re investing in, the benefits they’ll receive, and why your product or service is the best choice. A well-constructed sales page caters to these needs by providing in-depth product descriptions, testimonials, use cases, and persuasive narratives.

Think of it as a journey, where your visitor starts as a curious traveler and ends as a satisfied customer. The sales page allows  you to convey the value and uniqueness of your offering comprehensively. It’s your opportunity to address objections, build trust, and guide the visitor through the purchase process with transparency and confidence.

So, in the realm of digital marketing, a sales page is the ultimate closer—a tailored, information-rich masterpiece aimed at one singular goal: turning curious onlookers into delighted buyers.

What about product pages vs. sales pages?

If you already have product pages, do you still need sales landing pages? Um, heck yes! Unlike product pages, which highlight features in depth, a sales landing page is built specifically to convert. That means visitors see the exact information they need to make a purchasing decision, without the distractions typically found on a product page.

Plus, sales landing pages are more flexible than traditional product pages. They can be tweaked and tested and updated before you could even begin making changes to the rest of your website.

Long sales pages vs. short sales pages—which is better?

Trick question. The length of your sales landing page could depend on the product or service you’re trying to sell, your sales objectives, and what context you need to give your audience.

A longer sales page works because you have more space and time to answer likely questions and make your visitor more confident in their purchase decision. If you have a more complicated product or a more premium price tag, a longer sales page works in your favor.

A shorter sales page works because it can be punchy and capture your visitor’s attention quickly and get them to take an action. If your product or service is easy to explain and your information is straight-forward, a short sales page is the way to go. If you’re going with a low-commitment offer or low-priced product or service for your audience, a short sales pages makes it seem like a no-brainer.

So, which works for you?

How do I create a sales page that converts?

A sales landing page is a tool to drive, well, sales. As such, it must be carefully designed to motivate leads to take action. Whether you’re creating a new sales page or hoping to optimize an existing page, there are a few key notes you need to hit. So, what goes into crafting a high-converting sales landing page?

Your sales page needs to match the ad so visitors instantly recognize that they’re in the right place. Nothing derails a potential sale faster than a page that has little or nothing to do with whatever was featured in the ad (this is basically the ecommerce version of catfishing). You also have to know your landing page basics—like how to create a landing page. 

This is perhaps the most important (and often underestimated) part of an effective sales page, so here’s a quick example.

Let’s say you’re marketing a subscription service for a range of fancy jams and jellies, but this month you’re using paid ads to promote lavender honey from a local farm. It’s seasonal and supplies are limited, so it’s not something you want to add to your website’s regular catalog.

Whoever clicks on that ad has already told you they’re interested in the lavender honey (why else would they have clicked?). That means they don’t want to see that you offer ice wine jelly or canning supplies (at least, not right at that moment).

So, what does your sales page need to do? Show them the honey—and, hopefully, they’ll show you the money. Sweet, right?

• Show the product in action. Sometimes, simply showing the product in use is the best way to communicate value. Include visuals of the product in action to get customers excited about their upcoming purchase.
• Build trust with social proof. Address potential sales objections with real testimonials from existing customers. This helps potential customers see the value your product provides and adds credibility to your claims.
• Provide clear next steps. You don’t want to pay for ads that lead to a dead end. Maintain momentum by featuring a single, straightforward call-to-action on a prominent, clickable button so the next steps are 100% clear.

What do I need to know about sales page copywriting?

Having impactful copy is key in any sales effort, let’s be straight about it. But how do you make sure you’re hittin’ the nail on the head when it comes to your sales page copywriting? 

It’s easy: use persuasive copy. 

Your sales page needs to do the job of a salesperson, which means compelling leads to open their wallets. The headline should convey immediate benefits and the body copy should be used to address sales objections, answer potential questions, and compel visitors to click ‘buy.’

You also gotta make sure that you’re creating compelling hero copy for your sales landing page, and back up that “elevator pitch” with supporting copy on the rest of your landing page, wrapping up your sales narrative into a neat lil’ bowtie (cute imagery, we know).

High-converting sales page examples 

1. Dinnerly

From the creators of Marley Spoon, Dinnerly is an alternative meal kit service for the budget-conscious home chef. Their price per meal is roughly half of typical meal kits, but their recipes still pack a full-plate, high-quality punch. They’re able to pull this off by minimizing costs related to packaging and marketing.

For this campaign, Dinnerly advertised on Reddit and sent click-throughs to the sales landing page shown above.

Why does this sales page convert so well?
This page is built specifically for leads from a single source: Reddit. From the headline to the CTA (“Claim My Reddit Discount”), everything about this page is tailored to the leads who click through from a Reddit ad campaign. Greeting visitors with “Hi Reddit!” immediately tells them they’re in the right place. As we scroll down, the page continues to match both the source and the brand.

What can you learn from Dinnerly?
What can other marketers learn from this example and apply to their own pages? The big takeaway here is to match the message and design of your sales page to the ad. If you want to run similar campaigns across several sources (say, Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram), you should consider building and customizing variant sales pages for each one.

2. Ruby

Ruby provides virtual reception and chat services to a wide range of businesses. On this sales landing page, they’re speaking directly to business owners who need live phone support.

Why is this page so great at selling?
If you’re looking for inspiration on how to write a sales page, this is it. Both the headline and supporting copy reinforce benefits in terms relevant to the audience. 

All of the content (including benefits, visuals, and pricing information) is targeted towards businesses that need virtual reception and are concerned about missing customer calls or not being able to handle after-hours conversations.

This landing page also wins because it:

• Frames customer testimonials as “Success Stories” to add clout to standard social proof. 
• Features data from customer surveys to demonstrate proven results.
• Emphasizes their money-back guarantee, which addresses some of the biggest sales objections. (“Is it worth the cost? Will I regret this purchase?”)
• Minimizes external distractions by focusing on the receptionist services (rather than looping in their live chat offering).
• Visually divides sections and uses color-blocking to make it easier to scroll for relevant information.

What can you learn from Ruby’s sales page example?
A good sales page provides answers to everything potential customers need to confidently make an informed purchase. Even if you offer tiered services (like Ruby’s monthly packages of 100, 200, or 500 receptionist minutes), you can leverage a single sales page to drive conversions for all of them. The key is to aim for transparency about pricing and packages, so leads don’t have to click away from your sales page to learn more. 

If you need to provide extra information that doesn’t fit on the main page, you can use lightbox popups like Ruby does for their monthly plans. This is a clever way to keep visitors on the page without bogging down the main content with excessive details that might not be relevant to each visitor.

3. Thistle

Thistle is a ready-to-eat meal subscription service that specializes in nutritious, plant-based dishes made from local ingredients.

Why does this sales page get results?
One of the simplest things that makes a sales page effective is focusing on the benefits instead of features. The headline highlights what the visitor cares about most (meals that are “so deliciously easy”) and the rest of the copy uses language that says Thistle truly gets what their audience wants. 

Even though text only takes up a third of the space above the fold (allowing that bright, veggie-filled salad to do much of the talking), all of these heavy hitters are visible before we scroll down: “no more groceries,” “fill your fridge,” “super healthy,” “gourmet meals,” “less cost.”

How can you apply these lessons to your own sales pages?
In a highly competitive space, you need something that makes you stand out. Your sales page should balance speaking to your audience’s needs (which your competitors are likely also doing) and emphasizing your unique selling point (which is specific only to your brand). For Thistle, this means highlighting the traditional convenience and benefits of a meal delivery service, but also leaning into the health benefits that set them apart.

4. Solo Stove

This sales page is part of a retargeting campaign for customers who’ve already purchased the Solo Stove and potentially other accessories.

What makes this sales page a winner?
There are a few reasons why this sales page is so effective. Not only does it appeal to the community that’s built up around their brand, but it also uses visuals that show the product in action.  

Plus, by introducing the shield as their “most-requested accessory,” Solo Stove implies that their customers already want this. This serves two purposes.

First, for anyone who may have actually requested the shield, this page offers pure validation. If you even thought about wanting a shield for your Solo Stove and saw this campaign, you’re pretty much guaranteed to buy into it right away. As for the rest of Solo Stove’s customers retargeted by this campaign, the idea that it’s highly requested primes them to convert by building social proof right into the offer. 

This page also makes use of a clever CTA (“Claim your Shield” above the “Shop Now” button) that suggests Solo Stove customers are entitled to the shield after eagerly awaiting its release.

What can you learn from Solo Stove?
When you offer multiple products, using sales pages creates space to focus on just one item at a time. That said, you can play around with the formula to best serve your campaign. Unlike most of the other sales pages we’re discussing today, this one breaks the mold a little by linking out to three purchase pages instead of driving all traffic to one. 

Solo Stove included three separate “Shop Now” buttons to match the three sizes offered. However, splitting up traffic works here because anyone who clicks on this ad is already a Solo Stove customer. That means they already own a fire pit in one of these sizes—and since the shields are named to match each size, there’s no question of which button each customer should click.

5. The Coffee Network

The Coffee Network is an Australia-based coffee marketplace for bean lovers with an appetite for trying new blends.

What makes this sales page stand out?
Presumably, the audience here is already interested in coffee and likely searching online for the best coffee or, more specifically, the best coffee in Australia. That said, this sale page still has to sell—especially because the target audience is likely unfamiliar with the Coffee Network.

With a focus on benefits and customization (roasting method, strength, and flavor), the copy describes the coffee finder tool both clearly and succinctly. The three steps under “How It Works” are easy to understand at a glance. The call to action repeatedly urges coffee lovers to “try now” and the heading and body copy reiterate how simple it is to use.

Aside from a single link in the footer that leads to their homepage (which prevents leads from bouncing if they aren’t quite ready to buy), this sales page is free of external links and distractions. Including minimal links, offers, and buttons helps keep leads on the page until they’re ready to “Try Now” or grab more information from the website.

What can you learn from this sales page example?
Shorter landing pages work best for products that are simple, smaller purchases (i.e., products that don’t require as much deliberation or persuasion). For most of us, buying coffee isn’t all that complicated. So, in this example, a short and simple sales page hits the spot. The ideal length of any sales page depends on what you’re selling. However, when it comes to deciding what to include on your sales page, quality content always trumps quantity.

5. Taskrabbit

TaskRabbit is an online marketplace that matches freelance labor with local demand, allowing people to find help with tasks including personal assistance, furniture assembly, moving, delivery, and handyman work.

TaskRabbit’s sales landing page wants to make sure you’re not putting this service app in a box. They do more than just house moves, you know.

They give you their elevator pitch in the header, but they also get down to the details of exact tasks you can hand to them.

From assembling furniture to removing junk, mounting TVs to helping with home repairs, they leave no stone unturned. What’s even smarter is their strategic placement of clear, enticing call-to-action buttons for each service. This is a great strategy if you have a product or service that could seem one-dimensional, or known for just one of their services. They’re layin’ their uses cases out there, loud and proud.

What can you learn from this sales page example?

There’s no one way to design a sales landing page. You usually get a few CTAs at most on a landing page, linking to one destination. But TaskRabbit assigns individual CTAs for each service they provide, asking you to “Book now.” Even though this could look jarring, having so many CTAs on one page weirdly works for this sales page. So don’t be afraid to step out of the ol’ sales landing page comfort zone sometimes and try out a new strategy, whether visually or through copy. 

6. Expatfile

Expatfile is an authorized IRS e-file provider that allows Americans abroad to prepare and e-file their own tax return with the IRS in as quickly as 10 minutes.

Expatfile’s sales landing page is a masterclass in inclusivity— a diverse buffet that caters to the unique tastes (or pain points, less delicious perhaps) of every potential customer. 

Whether you’re a globetrotting adventurer, a family seeking a new home, or an entrepreneur eyeing international opportunities, Expatfile’s landing page speaks directly to you. With tailored sections that address the needs of different customer profiles, it’s like having a personal concierge who knows your preferences before you even ask. (And we don’t know about you but when it comes to taxes, we’ve always got lots of questions.)

Their intuitive design ensures that whether you’re seeking visa solutions, tax guidance, or relocation advice, you’re greeted with relevant content that makes you feel like there’s a solution for you. It’s a shining example of how a sales page can be a welcoming doorway for anyone seeking their services, making each visitor feel like an honored guest. 

What can you learn from this sales page example?

Unlike the last example, sometimes going for a longer sales landing page is key—especially if you’re speaking to different pain points for different sections of your audience. Yeah, buying coffee is easy, but doing taxes is hard. Especially if you add the element of doing taxes for a country you’re not even living in yet. (Doing taxes twice? Oh lord.)Delivering enough context so that your potential customer doesn’t feel lost, but instead feels supported, is important. Sometimes you need quality and quantity.

8. Notion

Notion is a freemium productivity and note-taking web application that offers organizational tools including task management, project tracking, to-do lists, and bookmarking.

What makes this page stand out?

Notion’s sales landing page is a breath of fresh air because they’re not shying away from entirely showing their product and its different use cases. Notion doesn’t hide behind the smoke and mirrors of clichéd visuals—instead, they let their product do the talking. 

They showcase the diverse range of use cases, from project management to note-taking, database creation to team collaboration, all wrapped in a user-friendly design they love to show off.  What sets them apart is their unapologetic display of functionality. You can pull from different parts of your product or the UX/UI design and have your sales whole page be that. Sometimes you don’t need those stock images of happy people. Who knew!

What can you learn from this sales page example?

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